1963: London's summer of the Hoverbus

Jago Hazzard looks back to a short-lived transport experiment that took place in London in the summer of 1963. From 1 July to 31 October, a hovercraft service operated on the Thames in London between Festival Pier at Waterloo and Tower Bridge.

The experiment was not a success and the Hoverbus's manufacturers, Denny, went out of business the following year.

But Jago is right: hovercraft were once seen as the future. Later in the Sixties, I can recall, you often got mini-hovercraft rides at more ambitious fetes.

But then, as Jonathan Meades once pointed out, the future happened briefly in 1969.

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