The 5 is the only route with a number lower than 20 not to go anywhere near central London, but this was not always so. It seems to have started off as the replacement for trolleybus route 665, from Barking, Poplar and Aldgate via Commercial Street and Old Street to Bloomsbury, although the 5 joined bus route 15 and ran to East Ham White Horse instead of Barking. But it was later diverted to serve Barking once again, and continuing on to Becontree Heath, replacing the 23 group of routes (latterly Becontree Heath – Aldgate).

However, the section west of Canning Town was later deemed redundant, except on Sunday mornings when it continued to run as far as Old Street in order to serve the famous Shoreditch Market. A partial replacement for the link to the north of the city was maintained by new Docklands route D3 (East Ham - Old Street), but only on Mondays to Saturdays except evenings. Neither the Sunday 5 extension nor the D3 exists now.

Photo by Andrew Gronneberg.

The Canning Town terminus of the 5 is now in the Jubilee Line interchange, where TA 73 (T673 KPU) of Barking garage is seen. This is one of the original batch of 98 purchased by Stagecoach to low-height specification, which gives the bus an extra-long appearance. The full-height Scania behind gives the game away however! Unfortunately, sister TA 74 met a fiery fate in the painter’s workshops before delivery, and was replaced by adding an extra bus (TA 222) to the following order for 123.

Interestingly, in 1936 there was another route number 5, which ran from Streatham Vale via Streatham, Clapham Common, Elephant, London Bridge, Aldgate and Poplar to Upton Park, thus serving part of the ground of the 1970s route 5. This was partially replaced by new route 118 (Raynes Park – Morden – Mitcham – Streatham – Clapham Common), the section north of the Elephant already being covered by route 40 (Herne Hill – Elephant – London Bridge – Aldgate – East Ham – Wanstead); until fairly recently the relics of this alignment were still recognisable in these routes. But there have been many changes over the years and to replicate the route now you would have to catch 118, 255, 155, 40, 15/115 and 330 – and even that is not an exact match. Following withdrawal of the original 5, there was a local route 5 from Clapham Common to Raynes Park/North Cheam (later becoming the 189 but now largely covered by the rather different route G1), following which London had no route number 5 for over a decade.

Navigation

	Previous	Next
Chronologically	77	376
Numerically	2	6

See also routes 15, 118, 60, 255, 155, 40, 115, 330, G1