Service 420 - Knightsford Bridge bypass
Posted: 09:41 Wednesday 12th October 2016
Found this newspaper cutting on the internet. It came from Berrows News and is dated 18th July 1958.
It shows the building of the new part of the A44 that bypassed the village at Knightsford Bridge near Knightwick. The road was built to provide a new bridge as the old one was thinking about falling down and had a 7-ton weight limit. Imagine the chaos that would cause these days with lorries having the divert via Bransford.
If you look very closely, you can see a large vehicle outside the Talbot Hotel. It looks a bit like a bus and as the Talbot was the timing point in the village it could well be a Service 420 waiting time or loading passengers. The old road looks narrow so maybe it is waiting for the one from Hereford (in DP livery) to pass before crossing the bridge? Or that could just be a lorry ignoring the 7-ton weight limit!
The timetable during this period was quite sporadic but buses towards Worcester departed the Talbot at between 14 and 29 minutes past the hour, while ones to Hereford were mostly at 26 minutes past the hours, so these could be two buses about to pass.
Either way, by the end of 1958 the old bridge was closed and partly demolished and the village lost their bus forever. The local shop closed having lost all their passing trade and the villagers had a long walk to the new bus stop at Suckley Turn... Once a new footbridge, which is still there today, was built next to The Talbot.
There was some good news for bus users... BMMO were able to reduce the running time by one whole minute after the bypass opened!
It shows the building of the new part of the A44 that bypassed the village at Knightsford Bridge near Knightwick. The road was built to provide a new bridge as the old one was thinking about falling down and had a 7-ton weight limit. Imagine the chaos that would cause these days with lorries having the divert via Bransford.
If you look very closely, you can see a large vehicle outside the Talbot Hotel. It looks a bit like a bus and as the Talbot was the timing point in the village it could well be a Service 420 waiting time or loading passengers. The old road looks narrow so maybe it is waiting for the one from Hereford (in DP livery) to pass before crossing the bridge? Or that could just be a lorry ignoring the 7-ton weight limit!
The timetable during this period was quite sporadic but buses towards Worcester departed the Talbot at between 14 and 29 minutes past the hour, while ones to Hereford were mostly at 26 minutes past the hours, so these could be two buses about to pass.
Either way, by the end of 1958 the old bridge was closed and partly demolished and the village lost their bus forever. The local shop closed having lost all their passing trade and the villagers had a long walk to the new bus stop at Suckley Turn... Once a new footbridge, which is still there today, was built next to The Talbot.
There was some good news for bus users... BMMO were able to reduce the running time by one whole minute after the bypass opened!