Report - Queen Street bus garage – Colchester – May 2018

mockney reject · May 6, 2018

The History

There’s not a great deal to tell about this place.

Queen Street Bus garage is built on the site of what was originally the Theatre Royal.

Built during the nineteenth century the new Theatre Royal, in Queen Street seated 1200 people, with its magnificent proscenium and forty foot stage, this theatre was a modern wonder.

Its boards had been trod by Macreadym Kean, Mrs Langtry, Edward Terry martin Harvey, Mrs Patrick Campbell and Gladys Cooper.

But early one morning in September 1918, fire was detected in the Theatre Royal and within a few hours nothing remained but the side walls.

Once the site was cleared the Queen Street bus garage was built and was in service up until a few years ago and operated by Firstbus.

In late August and September 1990, trial excavations were carried out at Queen Street Bus Garage.

Prompted by proposals for major redevelopment, the aims of the excavations were to establish the depth, nature and condition of archaeologically significant remains and also to assess the state of preservation of the buried north face of the town wall which forms the southern boundary of the site.

The present bus station and car park cover an area of approximately 2.8 acres (1.13 ha) within the south-east corner of the walled town. Previous small excavations and watching briefs, principally in the central part of the site, have consistently yielded evidence of substantial Roman occupation in the form of parts of several fine houses, some with hypocausts, mosaic floors and rooms finished in decorated wall-plaster.

The 1990 excavations were limited to five small trenches, their locations largely dictated by a need to probe areas closer to the periphery of the site.

More recently the Garage has seen use as a trendy venue hosting cinema and music nights, along with a licenced bar, however this seems not to have taken off and the site is now closed again

The Explore

After seeing a picture of what was in here uploaded to a local photography page I decided I had to go and have a look. The place was easily findable after a bit of work on the explorer’s favourite, google.

Now recently I have started taking my son out exploring, He loves it and has assumed ownership of my old camera. I showed him a picture of what was inside here and he dropped his WiiU and asked if we could go and have a look.

We got changed, jumped in the car and headed to Colchester.

Entrance was easy as the door was wide open and we wandered in and started snapping away.

Here are a few externals of the place

Internal time……

The building itself although covered in graffiti still had some nice signage and bits and bobs.

mockney reject · May 6, 2018

But what we really came for was yet to come.

I love cars, as does my son. What better than finding cars on an explore than finding a 1965 AEC Routmaster bus!!! A quick HPI check showed that this particular bus was registered on the 1st of October 1965 and at its last MOT in 2016 had only covered 71,000 Miles. Hardly run in!

The AEC Routemaster is a front-engined double-decker bus that was designed by London Transport and built by the Associated Equipment Company (AEC) and Park Royal Vehicles. The first prototype was completed in September 1954 and the last one was delivered in 1968. The layout of the vehicle was traditional for the time, with a half-cab, front-mounted engine and open rear platform, although the coach version was fitted with rear platform doors.

The first Routemasters entered service with London Transport in February 1956 and the last were withdrawn from regular service in December 2005, although one heritage route is still operated by Routemasters in central London. The first London bus route to be operated by the Routemaster was route 2, on 8 February 1956, with RM1. The same bus, with a revised front end, appeared at the Lord Mayor's Show in November 1956.

Most Routemasters were built for London Transport, although small numbers were built for British European Airways and the Northern General Transport Company. A total of 2,876 Routemasters were built, of which 1,280 are still in existence.

Despite the retirement of the original version, the Routemaster has retained iconic status, and is considered a British cultural icon. In 2006, the Routemaster was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons which included Concorde, Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, London tube map, World Wide Web and the K2 telephone box.