Every route 99. 8 of 25.

Thursday 7th May 2026

I’m still in the south west for this latest route 99 adventure and it’s an absolute stunner.

Operated by Hatch Beauchamp based (seven miles south east of Taunton) Hatch Green Coaches, the route connects the Somerset market town of Chard with the county town of Taunton via some delightful villages.

End to end journey time is a handy 55 minutes with the one bus allocated to the service offering an 08:30 arrival into Taunton (continuing on to serve Somerset College) with a 17:05 balancing return journey. In between those times a daytime two-hourly frequency leaves Taunton at 08:50, 10:50, 12:50 and 15:00 with departures from Chard at 09:50, 11:50, 13:50 and 16:00.

The same timetable (minus the College extension) applies on Saturdays and there’s no Sunday service.

The route includes a lengthy deviation around a residential area in the north of Chard thereby providing a local service (albeit not very frequent)…

… then serves the villages of Combe St Nicholas, Buckland St Mary and Staple Fitzpaine on the journey to Taunton…

… making for a particularly scenic section of route.

I had the pleasure of travelling on the 12:50 from Taunton and 13:50 return from Chard on a recent Thursday which turned out to be a glorious late April Spring day with sunshine and blue sky – ideal for enjoying Somerset’s scenic delights.

Thursday is Farmers’ Market Day in Taunton although the number of stalls is sadly few in number these days but it may still influence off-peak shopping traffic.

We left Taunton with an impressive 21 passengers including five students who boarded a few stops into the journey at Kings College.

Five passengers left us at the next three stops as we left the town but once crossing over the M5, save for one more passenger alighting shortly afterwards, the remaining 15 on board travelled all the way through to Chard with no takers for the delightful villages we passed through.

The smart one year old Enviro200 was a pleasure to ride in with a well kept and clean interior and I was impressed to see a dispenser behind the driver with timetable leaflets available too.

As we began the wander around Chard’s northern residential area, stopping four times, we picked up three passengers making the short journey into the town centre arriving at the terminus in Boden Street just a few minutes ahead of schedule.

There was a driver changeover and I took the opportunity to take a look at the facilities for passengers and, oh dear, they didn’t look good.

Two filthy bus shelters marred by graffiti with an empty timetable case, although more positively, once again Hatch Green scored bonus points for having its 99 timetable prominently displayed and easily readable making for a good example of how to do it.

I’d noticed these were displayed throughout the route too so well done Hatch Green.

Hopping back on the bus for the 13:50 return journey to Taunton I was joined by 10 passengers five of whom just travelled home locally in Chard where we picked three more up, and then it was a similar story to the southbound journey, with seven of the eight passengers travelling right through to Taunton and the eighth alighting in the charming village of Comb St Nicholas and more splendid Somerset scenery to savour along the way.

On arrival in Taunton the driver screened up ‘Not in Service’ so I don’t know whether that means another bus and driver is sceduled for the next southbound departure at 15:00.

A lovely journey, beautiful countryside, charming villages, a quality bus operator and what seems to be a supportive local authority. It’s just a shame about that bus shelter in Chard.

My favourite route 99 journey so far.

Roger French

Did you catch the previous seven blogs in this series? 1 Eastbourne-Hastings, 2 Petworth-Chichester, 3 Woolwich-Bexleyheath, 4 Tilbury Town-Tilbury Ferry Terminal, 5 Chippenham-Swindon, 6 Ubley-Chew Valley, 7 Exmouth-Brixington-Exmouth.

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