New Number for Bus Route Serving Grove Park
The 533 is now the 209 with minimal changes to the service
A first sighting of the 209 on Burlington Lane. Picture: Mike Campbell
August 18, 2026
Grove Park residents will have noticed something different at their usual stops along the A316 this weekend. The familiar 533 number had disappeared replaced by a new one: 209. But the route had been officially renumbered, marking the end of the 533 in the Chiswick and Barnes area.
Route 209 now runs from Hammersmith Lower Bus Station to Barnes Pond, following almost the entire path of the 533. For passengers travelling between Chiswick, Barnes and Hammersmith, very little has altered. The stops remain in place, and the service frequency stayed at fifteen minutes throughout the day, every day of the week.
The main difference lay in the structure of the route. The 533 had operated a loop around Barnes, running one-way along Lonsdale Road. The 209 removes that loop entirely. Instead, buses now travel two-way along the full length of Lonsdale Road, making the route simpler to understand and easier to use according to . This adjustment meant that passengers boarding on Church Road, Castelnau and Lonsdale Road needed to cross the road to catch the 209, as the direction of travel had changed.
At Barnes Pond, the 209 now terminated at stop BC. To make space, routes 378, 969 and N22 were moved twenty metres east to the newly reopened stop BD.
The number 209 had once been used for a Mortlake–Hammersmith service, and now returned to the area under First London’s operation. Meanwhile, the 533 — introduced in 2019 as a temporary response to the closure of Hammersmith Bridge — has finally disappeared. It had been created to give Barnes residents step-free access to the Underground at Hammersmith after the bridge shut, replacing a network that once included six bus routes crossing the river. The temporary measure lasted seven years, longer than anyone expected.
The proposed routes are no in effect. Picture: TfL
With its withdrawal, the 533 took one final distinction with it: London no longer has any bus routes numbered in the 500s.
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