142 Kit's Coty – Blue Bell Hill Village – Cookham Wood – Rochester – Chatham

The 142 is one of Nu-Venture's local Medway workings, and it is more interesting than the run-of-the-mill town service suggests. Starting from Chatham Waterfront Bus Station at Stop C14, where the buses line up beside the broad sweep of the river, it sets off through the heart of Chatham past Anchorage House and Hospital Lane before slipping down towards Rochester along the line of the old Roman Watling Street.

Through Rochester the route ducks south of the cathedral and castle, picking up stops at Bath Hard Lane and Furrell's Road before threading the close terraces of Troy Town. This is one of the oldest residential quarters of the city, a tight grid of Victorian streets named, so local tradition has it, after a long-vanished pub. Fort Street, the Health Centre and Onslow Road follow in quick succession, with brief glimpses of the castle keep rising above the rooftops to the north.

South of Jasper Avenue the bus begins to climb. The streets thin out as it passes the Wisdom Hospice and reaches Fleet Road and The Fairway, where post-war housing gives way to the wooded fringes of the North Downs. By the time the 142 pulls up at Cookham Wood Bus Terminus, the character of the journey has changed completely. Beech and chestnut close in over the road, and the view from the upper deck opens out across the Medway gap.

The pull up to Blue Bell Hill is the highlight. Past the Tideway, Medway Gurdwara and Rochester Airport Industrial Estate, the bus crests the escarpment at Bridgewood Roundabout. From here the road runs along the lip of the downs, with the valley falling away to the west. At Kits Coty the bus pauses near The Lower Bell, a short walk from Kit's Coty House itself, a Neolithic chamber tomb of three standing sarsen stones capped by a fourth, set in a fenced enclosure in an open field above the village.

From Kit's Coty the 142 turns and retraces its steps, dropping back through Blue Bell Hill village past Common Road, Mill Lane and Keefe Close, then down through Warren Wood and Rochester to finish back at the Waterfront. It is a tidy, scenic loop that packs prehistory, cathedral city and downland views into a single short ride.