Lancaster Services - reminder of when motorways were an exciting concept
Lancaster (formerly Forton) Motorway Services is one of the oldest motorway service stations. Designed when motorways were regarded as fun highways to a glittering future, the service station even has a tower!
Lancaster (Forton) services is a motorway service station, between junctions 32 and 33 of the M6 motorway in England. The nearest city is Lancaster, about 7 miles to the north. The site is operated by Moto.
Opening in November 1965, the service station - like many older service stations - was designed with an all-weather enclosed bridge to enable pedestrians to use both the northbound and southbound facilities.
Another, and deliberately prominent feature of its design was an unusual hexagonal concrete tower on the northbound side, named The Pennine Tower, which originally housed an up-market restaurant and a sun deck.
The purpose of the Pennine Tower was to make the services clearly visible – using an exciting design resembling that used by air traffic control, summarising the dreams of the ’60s.
The original plan was for the tower to be higher at 96 feet, but the authorities refused permission for this. At the top of the tower stood a fine-dining waitress service restaurant, offering views over the road below and across Lancashire.
All buildings in the original plan, including two takeaway units, the picnic building, the tower and the two restaurants, were hexagonal. Even the flower beds at the front were hexagon-shaped.
Sadly, there seemed as the years went by, insufficient interest in leisurely fine dining beside the motorway.
The service station experienced both lower demand than expected and difficulty recruiting staff. Its food was also routinely described as "disgusting" even by inspectors!
A 1978 government review described the service area as "a soulless fairground". They found that a 15 year-old was responsible for all the cooking.
First the restaurant became a self-service, then the tower closed in 1989 due to low use and high maintenance cost.
It has remained closed ever since, but was Grade II listed in 2012 and has become a treasured local landmark.
The image is by Ian Paterson, from Wikipedia
Further reading
Links to external websites are not maintained by Bite Sized Britain. They are provided to give users access to additional information. Bite Sized Britain is not responsible for the content of these external websites.