This long established operator was aptly named for its town services in the Windsor area. Founded by Arthur Moore (1872 - 1945) in 1920 the business would grow from taxis to buses, furniture removals and horseboxes.. Their first bus came in 1922. In 1929 the first of their traditional route westwards was started from Windsor town centre to Clewer Green, subsequently to be extended to Dedworth. For a short while from 1932 they ran alongside others between Windsor and Slough (but this passed to the newly formed London Passenger Transport Board in 1933). Their second route west  followed in 1936 from Windsor to Maidenhead Road. With a brown and cream livery they were kmown as 'the brown bus' by local people using their often very busy routes. A limited company was formed in 1946. The Imperial garage was in Firs Avenue, off Clewer Hill Road, just off the Dedworth route.  From 1st June 1947 the two routes were extended with the expansion of housing to Dedworth (Foster Avenue junction with Wolf Lane) and Vale Estate respectively.

The August 1950 timetable leaflet below lists the two routes from Dedworth to Windsor as Wolf Lane to Thames Street (unchanged from 1947 above) and Dedworth Manor and Vale Estate to Windsor Castle via Clewer Village and Oxford Road. At that time the Vale Road via Clewer Village route was diverted into Hanover Way to terminate at Tudor Way. These evolved into two routes running from Windsor to Dedworth via Clewer Three Elms (service 1) and Windsor to Dedworth Manor Estate via Clewer Village (service 2).  From January 1960 the latter was extended to Martin Estate (Galleys Road). From the timetables below the frequency on each of the two routes was half-hourly in 1950. In the 1960s the route via Clewer Village had increased to a twenty minute frequency, whilst the service from Foster Avenue still remained half-hourly.

Eventually, as the town expanded yet further to the west, the two routes were to meet at Ruddlesway. From February 1971 they were combined to form circular services operating in both directions ('A' clockwise and 'B' anti-clockwise). There was at the time some route variation at the outer end in the Martin Estate with alternate services running as A1 and B1 via Longmead with A2 and B2 services running the slightly longer route via Aston Mead. Evenings and Sunday all journeys were operated via the A2 and B2 routes. From 1972 ticket issue was discontinued and exact fare fareboxes, constructed by the company itself, were used on the buses.

The brown and cream Imperial vehicles continued to operate until 24th January 1987 when the bus routes passed to Alder Valley North (running as 'The Bee Line'). This followed the death of the founder's son Alf Moore and a decision by the family not to continue the business. It was also just a few months after the introduction of deregulation of bus services, removing the protection of route enjoyed previously by the incumbent operator - perhaps this may have had a bearing too. Although their bus routes had stopped it was not quite the end of the business as a small amount of school work continued until the end of the spring term.

    A KALEIDOSCOPE OF COLOURS

An interesting twist of history has a current White Bus off-peak hourly shoppers West Windsor circular service W1 operating into what was once Imperial territory in Clewer Green and Dedworth.

Blue Bus had a Windsor – Maidenhead service via Eton Wick, Dorney and Taplow which was sold to Thames Valley in June 1966. The Windsor to Taplow part of the route originated in 1923 and was extended to reach Maidenhead in 1955. These were some of a number of private operators that co-existed 'filling the gaps' in the interface between London Transport and Thames Valley in the Windsor area.