New brewery and visitor centre for Belvoir - Nottingham CAMRA

In Praise of PUBlic Transport
No. 51 of a series in which Spyke Golding looks at the use of buses, trams, trains and planes to visit pubs
A Visit to Hartshorne in Derbyshire by bus
I am pleased to report that the
Department of Transport is at last
looking into options for strengthening
bus passenger representation. Hopefully
this will lead to improvements in services
– and in particular to the woefully
inadequate services we had to suffer
over the recent holiday period. I can see
no excuse for not operating buses on
Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. With a
major football match on each occasion,
and taxis charging up to double fare,
how many people, unless living on the
tram route, felt forced to drive when
they may still have been over the limit
from the night before? It is all very well
to say that bus drivers deserve a break
too – our buses are a public service and
as such should, like the Police, Fire and
Ambulance services, always be there for
us. Also, I do not for one moment
believe that there would not be drivers
queuing up to work during the holiday
if offered an appropriately enhanced
rate of pay. I intend to continue to
campaign for better holiday services and
would seek the support of readers in
this issue – let us no longer
be positively encouraged to
drink and drive or stay at
home! Another personal
campaign I shall be pursuing
regards the early running of
buses from certain timing
points, causing passengers
to miss them. It is a pity that
our normally excellent bus
services are marred by this
practice, which achieves
nothing and causes ill feeling
in would be passengers who
miss them. The worst
offenders seem to be the
Mansfield Road services,
which have been known to
leave from the stop opposite
the Lincolnshire Poacher up
to ten minutes early – a big
problem if they are the last
buses into town and
passengers have midnight
connections to make. NCT
do tell me that steps are
being taken to deal with the
problems, and have agreed
to meet me to discuss the
issues – so watch this space!
In my last article, I asked where, in our
City Centre, could you still play darts! I
got egg on my face with that one when
I received a call from a pub that not only
do I use regularly but also advertises in
the Drinker, mentioning its dartboard!
So, apologies to Bob and Carol at the
News House, Canal Street, for forgetting
them! Incidentally, no other darts pub
has yet come to light in the City Centre
– could they be the only one?
Hartshorne is a pleasant village on the
A514 between Melbourne and
Swadlincote. The earliest recorded
mention of the village is in the
Domesday Survey of 1086 where it is
described as an Anglo-Saxon settlement.
The village lies below a sandstone ridge
that reaches around 600 feet above sea
level at its highest point, and it is from
the shape of this that the village is
believed to get its name. Viewed from
certain angles, the hill is said to
resemble the shape of a stag or harts
head. Hence, it is correctly pronounced
Hart’s Horn, not Hart Shorn.
Getting there was pretty
straightforward when I wrote this
article in December and used the
Arriva airlink 69 buses from East
Midlands Airport to connect with a
Skylink bus from Nottingham. But
once again I was let down by public
transport when I tried to return in
the daytime to take the photographs
on Sunday January 6th, when I went
all the way to the airport only to find
that the service had been changed –
but their website timetables had not
been updated. (I did write to Arriva
about this, but, at time of writing, 8
days later, I had not even had the
courtesy of a reply) The timings were
such as I was unable to proceed, and
had travelled all the way to EMA
fruitlessly! Although the 69 was still
running, albeit to a different
timetable, and only to Melbourne
where you would need to change, it
is rumoured that this may be
discontinued shortly. So it is more
convenient to go via Derby, where
an Arriva 68 will take you there. This
service runs from Morledge at 3
minutes past the hour all day, and
returns to Derby at 31 minutes past
the hour until 2231 – you can use the
Red Arrow to connect, or the R4 or
R5 if more convenient to where you
live. The journey time is 57 minutes.
20 www.nottinghamcamra.org February/ March 08