Event Cancelled
It is with regret that the proposed event on Sunday 14th August to celebrate the centenary of the opening of Maidstone's former Mill Street Bus Station has had to be cancelled.
In spite of the support of several local councillors, including the outgoing and incoming Mayors, for which the event organisers are very grateful, agreement to make the former bus station site (now a council-owned car park) available for the display of a number of buses has not been forthcoming and without use of the site as the centrepiece of the event, the purpose of the celebration will be lost.
Celebrating the country's first bus station - 100 years on
Maidstone's Mill Street Bus Station was opened by The Maidstone & District Motor Services Limited on 15th August 1922 and is generally accepted to have been the first purpose-built bus station in the country.
It was located on the corner of Mill Street and Palace Avenue, remaining in use until 1976, when services were transferred to Lower Stone Street Bus Station, about 200 yards further along Palace Avenue and in use from 1951 until 1988.
The site of Mill Street Bus Station remains as a Maidstone Borough Council car park and very little around it has changed since it was closed, with the Museum of Carriages immediately behind the site, opposite which is the former Archbishops' Palace, and on the other side of Palace Avenue is the River Len and the art deco building that had served as a car dealer's showroom and workshops since 1938 but which is now being converted into apartments.
Maidstone Police Station, the building with the fine chimneys in the photo above, looks just the same now as it did then.
The impressive booking office and waiting room that was a feature of Mill Street Bus Station was dismantled and moved to the Kent & East Sussex Railway in 1976, being re-erected at Tenterden Town Station in 1988 where it continues to serve as a tea room in its centenary year.