Could a slate-roofed shelter in rural Cumbria be the England’s least-used bus stop, asks Duncan Walker.
“I wouldn’t expect to see anyone here, maybe the odd walker in summer, but nobody now.” Bus driver Tony Carrick, who navigates the 625 service through the narrow lanes of Cumbria’s Eden Valley, is right. On a rain-sodden mound in the village of Milburn – the slopes of the Pennines a brisk hike away – sits a forlorn sandstone shelter. Nobody is waiting. And this is a big day. After the 625 returns from Penrith, nine miles distant, the bus will not return for a week. Other weekly services – one funded by coffee mornings – attract a little more attention as they pass by, but locals suggest this amounts to six or seven passengers a week. Eden is England’s most sparsely populated area, so the possibility that this is the UK’s loneliest stop is not far-fetched.
AC 