I was fortunate enough to receive the following photographs of Maidstone & District vehicles from Les Gudgion, a former M&D conductor, now living in New Zealand.
Enhanced captions and details will follow shortly.
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Maidstone's Mill Street Bus Station was the first in the world. Seen here in 1957, Palace Avenue (now part of the A229 one way system) is completely devoid of traffic. |
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The headquarters of M&D was Knightrider House in Knightrider Street. This is a view of Knightrider House with a tantalising view of the depot in the background. |
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Lower Stone Street was M&D's second - and eventually only bus station. Eventually Lower Stone Street was also closed and M&D reverted to using bus stands in the High Street, overcrowding of which prompted opening of the original Mill Street Bus Station. This view was taken in 1958. |
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DH477, an AEC Regent V with Park Royal H59RD bodywork seen outside the Hut in Mill Street Bus Station on 21 August 1964. Les writes "this is where the bus crews would sit and wait until it was time to depart on their journey and if we were on standby we would sit in the hut and play solo until the inspector required our services. I was in the hut when the news came through of the Munich air crash that killed so many of the Manchester United Soccer Team. My late wife's great grandparents came from Sutton Valence, the number 12 service used to turn around by a barn just beyond the bottom of the hill, at the bottom of the hill there was a transport cafe and we would get a jug of tea and 2 cup there and take them to the turning point and have our cuppa until it was time to leave. When it was time to set off on the return journey the bus would stop opposite the cafe and the conductor would run across the road and return the empties to the cafe before carrying on up the hill." Picture courtesy of The SCT 61 Website, which has pictures of M&D and other operators from various periods including the 1960s. |
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