Take a virtual ride on Enfield's newest bus route and get a driver's eye view
If you can't wait for your first 456 experience, or Covid is putting you off catching buses at the moment, you can watch this fascinating video, made for driver training purposes. The route starts near Enfield's northern boundary and finishes nearly at its southern extremity, passing through contrasting scenery - green belt land at Crews Hill, the Clay Hill conservation area, interwar suburbia, Edwardian suburbia, the centre of a historic market town, busy urban streets, roads lined by playing fields, and the mildly dystopian Cambridge Roundabout, where mere human beings are cut down to size by the mighty all-conquering motorcar.
The route map published in 2019 for consultation purposes and likely to still be valid
After a rather long wait, the 456 bus service will finally start operation this month, providing useful new links and serving areas currently without buses. Despite objections from some residents, who may have been concerned about a loss of on-street parking, the route will be as originally proposed and new fixed bus stops will be used.
From 13th March the 456, first consulted on in November 2019, will be a daytime-only service running from the North Middlesex Hospital in the south to Crews Hill in the north via Silver Street, Firs Lane, Farm Road, Station Road, Winchmore Hill Green, Worlds End, Enfield Town and Willow Road. It will for the first time provide a bus service for the Firs Lane, Station Road and Church Hill areas of Winchmore Hill and will greatly improve the service for residents of the Willow Estate and Clay Hill in Enfield. According to TfL, this means that for the first time there will be a bus service within 400 metres of 3,700 people and 600 jobs.
The 456 will replace the W10, a very infrequent bus from Enfield Town to Crews Hill, and will run at 30 minute intervals Monday to Saturday and hourly on Sundays.
At Crews Hill the 456 will terminate short of Cattlegate Road, meaning that it will not reach most of the garden centres or the railway station. This is presumably because there is no suitable turning point in Cattlegate Road.
