ABOVE: Stagecoach South 10768 (SN66 VYO), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, near the college of Technology in South Farnborough, on a route 1 working from Camberley to Aldershot. All photos in this article were taken on Tuesday 20 January 2026.
Finding the 1 ...
in North East Hampshire and Surrey
Aldershot to Camberley
7 March 2026
Runs: Daily
Operator: Stagecoach South
Weekday daytime frequency: Every 12 minutes
Peak Vehicle Requirement: 11 buses
Off-peak journey time (weekdays): 57-64 minutes
Estimated route length: 10-11 miles
STAND TO ATTENTION - OFFICER PRESENT! Soldier - get your hair cut!
OK, stand easy...
Excuse the ceremony, but I'm in the town that is known as "The Home of the British Army", Aldershot.
In 1851, this town in North-East Hampshire had a population of 875. Ten years later the population had shot up (no military pun intended) to more than 16,000, mainly due to the establishment, in 1854, of the Aldershot Garrison, the first permanent training camp for the British Army. This was at the height of the Crimean War.
Silent film actor Charlie Chaplin made his first stage appearance in Aldershot Military Town, in 1894 at the age of five, at The Canteen theatre. And future Prime Minister Winston Churchill was based here in the late 19th century during his time in the Army.
Even today, the huge military presence in the area can be seen all around. It houses Aldershot Garrison's married quarters, barracks, Army playing fields and other sporting facilities.
But Aldershot Town Centre no longer has a Bus Station. This was closed down in 2023, to enable the site to be 'developed', and the bus services were distributed to various stops dotted around the Town Centre. Of all of these stops, the one for route 1 is perhaps the most difficult to find.
The other bus stops seem to cling around (different) sides of the Shopping Centre and pedestrian precinct - all quite convenient for town centre access, if not for interchange to other routes (or to the railway station). But, for Stagecoach South route 1 to Camberley, you need to walk a couple of hundred yards down the High Street and cross the road.
The lonely Bus Stop on "Union Yard" stands between the Town Centre Car Park and a derelict building that must surely once have been a cinema and/or Bingo Hall. It hardly screams out "Welcome to Aldershot", and it must be quite a forbidding stop late at night.
But this is the finishing / starting point for route 1 - one of a number of route 1s that I am trying out in my quest to find "the 1" that can sit at the top of my "100 British Bus Routes" series.
The 12:00 departure arrives from its inward journey at 11:59, nine minutes later than scheduled.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South 10766 (SN66 VYL), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, arrives at the finish/start point of route 1 in Aldershot.
There's also now a driver-change, which is quite a slow one, such that it's 12:06 by the time the driver opens the doors to receive his customers.
The bus, an ADL Enviro400 MMC, is dressed in the Stagecoach Gold livery, which I believe has been discontinued as a brand. Most buses also carry some limited route branding as well (see title picture above). The branding includes the message that the service runs every 10 minutes during "mon-sat daytime" (no capitals used). This branding is also carried prominently on an upstairs internal vinyl at the front of the bus, even if it does look a little 'tired':
And it might well look a little tired, as the maximum service frequency is currently one bus every 12 minutes. This seems to have been the case since January 2022 - four years before my visit. Probably time to update the branding...(Incidentally, I found a 2016 timetable online when researching this article...)
And, of course, the 12-minute frequency is only good if the buses run on time. Mine finally pulls out at 12:08, eight minutes late.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South 48205 (YJ74 CXY, nearer the camera), an Optare Solo SR, stands behind a fellow Solo in High Street, Aldershot. Although not obvious from this photo, access to the Town Centre is just to the left, behind me.
One positive of the bus stop location is that egress from the town is very straight-forward, and we're quickly over Wellington Avenue, a major road that bypasses the Town Centre, and onto Hospital Hill. This is indeed the location of the local Hospital, which carries the slightly underwhelming name of the "Aldershot Centre for Health". Does what it says on the tin, I suppose.
Next to the Hospital, is the striking Smith-Dorrien building. This Italianate-style building was originally the Smith-Dorrien Wesleyan Soldiers’ Home, established to provide recreational facilities for off-duty soldiers. The aim was to provide an attractive alternative to the pubs and beer-halls of the town, where soldiers could relax without recourse to alcohol (source: Friends of the Aldershot Military Museum).
After the Second World War, the building was no longer needed as a soldiers’ home and was used by the Ministry of Defence for offices. It was given up by the Army in the early 2000s.
The roads out of Aldershot are very neat and orderly, as might be expected of a Military establishment. This is Queen's Avenue:
Whilst route 1 is mainly double-decker operated, a couple of single-deckers have crept out onto the route.
ABOVE: Also in Queen's Avenue, Aldershot, the military presence is reinforced by the signage (left) to various sites in the Military Town, as an Enviro300 heads into Aldershot Town Centre on route 1.
We venture towards Farnborough, home of the famous biennial Air Show. The route passes very close to the edge of the Airport.
ABOVE: An industrial trading estate dominates the forward view as we head along Boundary Road and prepare to turn right onto Farnborough Road. A left turn will quickly take you to the Airport.
A few minutes later brings us into the centre of Farnborough, where there is plenty of car parking:
...but limited space for buses and their passengers:
ABOVE: A crowded bus stop on Farnborough Road in the Town Centre, as four buses jostle for space. Right in front of my bus is Thames Valley 795 (SN66 WLK), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, on one of the three journeys a day on route 194 from Bracknell that extend beyond Camberley to terminate here. Just pulling out in front is White Bus 54 (YY73 RFZ), an ADL Enviro200 MMC. The Stagecoach South bus in front is actually parked up. It's 36703 (SF62 CHL), an ADL Enviro 200, which has just arrived on route 2 from Camberley.
To be fair, there are major roadworks in the Town Centre, and all of the buses have been displaced, so this isn't how it would normally be. (The normal stops can just be seen in the Car Park photo above, right in front of the main building.)
We continue to the Railway Station. Sometimes referred to as Farnborough Main to distinguish it from nearby Farnborough North, the station was opened in 1838 by the London and South Western Railway (then the London and Southampton Railway). It's an impressive frontage:
ABOVE: We have caught up with Thames Valley 795 again at Farnborough Railway Station
The bus is getting very busy now, and is losing more time. As we come to Frimley, we cross over the busy A331 trunk road and run parallel for a short distance.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South 10763 (SN66 VYH), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, crosses over the railway at Frimley station. The station itself is out of sight on the right.
The name Frimley is derived from the Saxon name Fremma's Lea, which means "Fremma's clearing". The land was owned by Chertsey Abbey from 673 to 1537 and was a farming village. Despite being of Saxon origin, the town is not mentioned in the Domesday Book.
The town was a coach stop on the road between London and Portsmouth / Southampton for about four hundred years. The coaching inn, "Ye Olde White Hart," has stood prominently at the end of the High Street since the 17th century, and will no doubt have shared in the passing traffic through some of that time.
ABOVE: This is 10763 again, on a later run through Frimley High Street
Once we pass under the M3 motorway, we're on the home straight towards Camberley.
ABOVE: Stagecoach South 10775 (WVT 618), another ADL Enviro400 MMC, has been given this special "Poppy Appeal" livery. When it is seen on the Frimley Road, the windows of my bus are starting to steam up because the bus is so busy.
It's probably inevitable that the bus behind (a single-decker) catches up and overtakes us on this section. It will at least pick up some of the many passengers who are heading into Camberley.
Meanwhile, I've been 'enjoying' some of the next stop announcements on this bus. What is presumably an AI interface struggles a bit with Shaftesbury Court, which it pronounces "Shaft-tess-bree Court" as very distinct syllables. Bristow Road is presented as though it rhymes with "how" rather than with "hoe", and the emphasis is all wrong at "Frimley Rail Way Station", where the emphasis is very much on the "Way".
As we turn towards the Town Centre of Camberley, we meet Thames Valley 795 for the third time:
The approach from this direction brings us to "The Atrium", which houses some restaurants, a cinema and a bowling alley:
We are just around the corner from Pembroke Broadway, the focal point for the buses here. We should have got there at 12:48, but it's now 13:05 so, when the driver stops the engine and leaves the bus (in search of relief), I decide to do the same.
Known originally as "Cambridge Town", Camberley was assigned its current name by the General Post Office in 1877. Composer Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900), whose collaboration with W. S. Gilbert has given us such a rich seam of musical entertainment, attended school here, and composer Rick Wakeman (born 1949), lived here in the 1980s.
Wikipedia tells us that transport links through the area began to improve with the opening of the London-Basingstoke turnpike, now the A30 London Road, in 1728. The Basingstoke Canal, which runs to the south of Camberley, was completed in 1794 and the canal wharf at Frimley was used to supply building materials for the Royal Military College.
Pembroke Broadway, which sits alongside the Railway Station, is the focal point for buses in the town, with two stops on each side of the road.
ABOVE: Stagecoach 10778 (SN66 VYZ) pauses at the Camberley Broadway stop in the Town Centre.
But this isn't the terminus of route 1. Buses continue for a few more minutes to Old Dean, a suburb to the north-east of town. The Old Dean housing estate was built in the 1950s on the "Old Dean Common", and was intended for residents of Surrey who were left homeless after the heavy bombing of the Second World War. Many of the roads in Old Dean are named after areas of London: Wimbledon Road, Mitcham Road, Wallington Road, Kingston Road and Carshalton Road, for example.
Buses do a loop of this area and pause at Berkshire Road, before heading back to Camberley and Aldershot. It's an intensive service for such an affluent part of the country, with even Sunday daytime buses running every 15 minutes, and late night services seven days a week.
ABOVE: There are five buses in view here in Pembroke Broadway. Stagecoach South 27617 (GX10 HCE, left foreground) is an ADL/TransBus Enviro300, whilst Thames Valley 672 (YX67 UYO, right foreground) is an ADL Enviro200MMC.
OK, troops. That's the end of the lecture. Why not give this route 1 a try if you're in the area? Or join me on the next 1 in due course...
Now then, ATTENTION!
Well done, troops. Parade over. DIS-MISSED!