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Trunk route 243 owes its high number to the Trolleybus replacement programme of the 1960s. Route 543/643 ran Wood Green to Holborn Circus, terminating in a loop working there (with the two routes going opposite ways round), on Mondays to Saturdays only, with the Sunday service being numbered 649A and running to Liverpool Street instead, and arrangement daying back to 8 May 1940! The routes were renumbered 243 and 243A respectively in 1962.

The 243A ran to London Docks via Aldgate, but subsequently reverted to Liverpool Street. The main reason for the differing route on Sundays was to serve the Sunday markets in the Shoreditch area, and the arrangement survived right until 2000, the 243A being withdrawn after operation on 13 August after just over 60 years. This route was notable as being the very last of a long line of "Sunday suffixed" bus routes in London, i.e. routes where the Sunday service differed slightly from the Monday to Saturdays and was numbered with a suffix letter. This tradition thus narrowly failed to survive into the 21st century, although a similar but undistinguished arrangement lasted on the 43 until last year.

Changes introduced form 19 August 2000 saw the Sunday service re-numbered 243 and diverted to Old Street, which was also the terminus on Saturdays, and the Monday to Friday service extended to Waterloo replacing Red Arrow route 505, which was withdrawn, also ending the Holborn Circus terminal loop which dated right back to when the 643 replaced tram route 43 on 5 February 1939. The service now runs to Waterloo at weekends too, and all night, the N243 having recently been replaced by a night service on the 243.

Now the route is operated by a mixture of low floor double deck types, including Wright Eclipse Gemini bodied Volvo B7TLs, a design which obviously captured the imagination of the advertising department at Transport for London who use it on a lot of the promotional literature. This view shows VLW178 (LJ03 MLN) nearing journey’s end on Saturday 21 May 2005 in Lordship Lane outside the "Lordship" pub, more or less at the junction with Perth Road and Dunbar Road in Wood Green.

Photo © Steve Benson.

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