Bus, Trolleybus and Tram Routes of Kingston upon Hull Corporation
Predecessors and Successors. 1899 to 1986

Chapter Twelve

Inner Circle

Road Service Licence No’s: BH101/1, /13, /14, /15, /27, /62, /116, /128.

The chapter heading is rather misleading as the term “Inner Circle” was not used in this group until 1980, and it concerned only one licence, even then. The licence concerned was the one that had its origins in the early days of motorbus operation in the City of Hull, and it was, at this point in time referred to as “inter-district”. It was the second motorbus route in the City and covered a service from the City Centre via the Humber Bank to the Fish Dock from where it ran via West Dock Avenue, Hessle Road, St George’s Road, Anlaby Road, Albert Avenue, Spring Bank West, Chanterlands Avenue, Hardwick Street, Prince’s Avenue, Queens Road, Sculcoates Lane, Bankside and Ferry Lane to Stoneferry Green. Quite an excursion for 1923! It ran in this form only for a few weeks from October to December when it was split into two services, one being the city to fish dock route the other being from the fish dock to Sculcoates. As a consequence there was never a licence held for the original route, although both licences and route numbers were given to the derived routes under the 1930 Road Traffic Act. Also in 1923, the Corporation acquired a school route from the Kingston upon Hull Passenger and Goods Company, which it had purchased during the year. The service ran between James Reckitt Avenue or Southcoates Lane School, very little is known about the route.

Under the provisions of the 1930 Road Traffic Act the existing routes were granted on the following licences. Route number 1 City to Fish Dock: BH101/1. Route number 27 Fish Dock to Bankside: BH101/13. Route number 25 Fish Dock to Queen’s Hotel: BH101/14. Route number 26 Fish Dock to De Grey Street (Beverley Road: BH101/15 and the school service: BH101/27. It will be noted that the Fish Dock to Sculcoates service had three variations depending on the outer terminal point.

With the coordination agreement in July 1934, very little effect was apparent in these services as East Yorkshire did not operate in the areas concerned. The school service and the Queen’s Hotel service were both discontinued and their licences surrendered (BH101/14, /27) but another licence was granted, BH101/62 for another service 26 from the Fish Dock to Beverley Road. What the status of this service was or how long it lasted is totally unknown. Certainly by 1959 it was no longer operating, and probably ceased at the outbreak of the war as did the route 1 from the City to the Fish Dock. The latter ceased as a temporary measure, but never recommenced and the licence was subsequently surrendered.

Licence BH101/13 was surrendered in 1959 and its route, the 27 Fish Dock to Air Street was transferred to BH101/15 as a variation of the 26, both routes being identical to Queen’s Road. There was a variant of the 27 introduced in March 1962 which ran past Air Street along Bankside to Sissons Street, and both variants continued to run alongside each other no differentiation of route number being made until 1967.

A school service commenced operation in September 1964 which ran from Stoneferry to the David Lister High School in Rustenburg Street. It carried route number 198, which would indicate a variant of the 98, which was on licence BH101/79, but it was held on a new licence, BH101/116. In October 1965, it was shown as being renumbered 800 which was the start of the school series of numbers. However, in April 1967, it was again renumbered 98S and transferred to BH101/79, its own licence then being surrendered. Meanwhile, on BH101/15, the Sissons Street service 27 was renumbered 27A thus now distinguishing the two routes, but six months later, both the 27 and 27A were renumbered to 26A and 26B respectively. This was logical as all three services ran identical routes as far as Queen’s Road. The following September, 1968, the 26B was extended from Sissons Street and now ran into Stoneferry. A year later the Stoneferry service became 26C and a short working to Sissons Street was re-introduced as the 26B. There were now four services operating on the licence, 26, 26A, 26B and 26C.

The new timetable issued in March 1970 showed a revision of the services on the licence as another 27 and 27A were introduced on the licence. Starting from West Dock Avenue, as did the 26, they ran to Dansom Lane for Reckitt’s (27) or Ripon Street for Hollis Bros and Victoria Dock (27A). The 27’s differed in that they ran via Newland Avenue and Cottingham Road rather than Sculcoates Lane and Main Street. The Stoneferry service 26C was relegated to “extra journey” status and remained so until the licence was further revised in September 1972. At this point the 26C was completely discontinued, but the five remaining services had their western terminus altered to Goulton Street. This was actually around the corner eastwards of the original terminus and vehicles ran via Goulton Street, Boulevard South and Hessle Road to regain their normal route. At the same time the outer termini of the 26 and 26A were altered to Sculcoates Lane (Beverley Road junction); 26 and Wincolmlee (Fountain Road junction) 26A.

A joint licence was granted for another works service which ran from Longhill to Needler’s factory in Sculcoates lane. It was numbered 37W and was granted on BH101/128. There is no evidence that the Corporation ever operated this service at all.

When the timetable was issued in September 1973, the David Lister School service 98S was renumbered 27S and transferred from BH101/79 to BH101/15. According to the timetable it commenced from Ferry Lane, but in actual fact it commenced from Goulton Street and ran the full 27 route first, although the fact was never advertised in the timetables, this was, of course, the reason for its transfer of licence.

There were no further changes to the licence until July of 1976, when a variant of the 26 commenced operations. This was numbered 26W and ran via the normal route to Bankside from where it ran via Clough Road, Ferry Lane and Holwell Road to the Sutton Road junction. The industrial estate of Sutton Fields was being developed in the area to the north of Stoneferry and it was this area which the 26W was intended to serve.

The joint 37W service was no longer shown in the Corporation timetables from May 1977 and it is presumed that the joint licence BH101/128 was surrendered. A year later the 27A terminus was altered from Ripon Street to the Craven Street and Hedon Road junction. This was due to the redevelopment taking place in the Victoria Dock area. The following year, the September timetable showed both the 26A and 26W outer terminals altered also to the junction of Fountain Road on Main Street (26A) or Stockholm Road (26W). This now left seven routes operating on licence BH101/15; namely 26, 26A, 26B, 26W, 27, 27A and 27S. There were no further changes until January 1980.

It was at this point where the term “Inner Circle” was first used in the group of services, although the Sunday to Friday services remained unaltered there were two circular services introduced which ran on Saturdays only and linked the various shopping areas of Hessle Road, Anlaby Road and the Avenues with the two housing estates of Thornton and Brunswick and also to the City Centre. They ran as 25C clockwise and 26C anti-clockwise. They must have been successful for from June, they ran daily with only a skeleton of normal journeys at peak times. In August the 26B extra journey to Sissons Street was deleted from the timetable. Their success must have been short-lived as in May 1981; the circulars were replaced by the previous services. Thornton estate and Brunswick estate were now serviced by a twin circular numbered 65 (Brunswick) and 66 (Thornton). This ran on a ‘figure of 8’ basis, the vehicle operating each service alternatively. They too were discontinued in September.

In May 1982, another attempt was made to provide a bus service to Thornton estate when service 26C was introduced. This ran from Sculcoates Lane via the normal 26 route to Hessle Road from where it traversed the estate and the City Centre before returning in the opposite direction. This now replaced the majority of the 26 workings.

The terminus of the 27S was amended to commence from Cumbrian Way instead of Stoneferry, this replaced the actual terminus of Goulton Street, of course. This route now ran from North Bransholme via the main estate and Holwell Road to Stoneferry where it rejoined its previous route. This took place in December 1984, although the Goulton Street part may have been discontinued prior to this date.

In July 1985 there were major alterations to BH101/15, the only licence still in force; on BH101/124 the two remaining service 69 (Askew Avenue-Leads Road) and 69A (Askew Avenue-Stockholm Road) were transferred to it; The 26C was discontinued and the 275 renumbered 99, but the biggest change was the introduction of a new “inner circle” route numbered 50 clockwise or 51 anti-clockwise. There were a number of variations and these are best listed in tabular form and were as follows:

It should be noted that the 50E was the equivalent of the 27 route and the 50F/51F was the equivalent of the 26. The 50A/50B ran from the latter terminal via the eastern part of the inner circle, but these two were discontinued in October. The 50/51 were the 25C/26C services of 1980, with some minor revisions of route. The 26, 26A, 26W, 27 and 27A all continued operation with the 50/51 group until May 1986, when these five, along with the 69 and 69A were all discontinued. Replacing them was a single service numbered 26 which ran from the Hessle Road and North Road junction to Reckitt’s at Chapman Street via Sutton Fields and Stoneferry. This was short lived; however, as in the preparation for deregulation, all existing routes on the licence were discontinued and were replaced by two new inner circle routes numbered 21 and 22. Due to the representations of residents in the Bricknell Avenue West and Hotham Road areas, who were now deprived of a regular bus service Hull City Council agreed to subsidise a bus service to the area and the company commenced running services 21A and 22A to and from Bricknell Avenue by the western part of the inner circle route. These four services continued in operation until 25th October 1986, when they were replaced by the registered services, the licence which was one of the original licences under the 1930 Road Traffic Act was finally surrendered.

Before finishing the chapter it is interesting to look at the differences in the three inner circle routes when compared to each other.

Route numbers used are those of the pre-deregulation network. It can be noted that the two estates of Brunswick and Thornton were still getting varied attention from the City Transport right up to the end!

Keith Easton
01/2012

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