Fear and loathing in Cheshire’s M6 motorway services

Knutsford Services turns 60 this year. One of Britain’s first service stations, it once encapsulated a modern vision of Britain’s future, but, like high rise towers, shopping centres and the motorways themselves, they became symbols of the drudgery of late 20th century Britain.

Motorway services were only accessible to those with cars, and in 1958, when Britain’s first motorway, the M6, opened, there was just one car to every 11 people in the country. They were exclusive places, out of reach for the majority of the country, and accessible only to the affluent and mobile.

The first service station, Watford Gap, opened the same day as the M1, November 8 1959. Reportedly, Jimi Hendrix heard so much about ‘The Blue Boar’, as the services were then known, that he thought it was a swanky London nightclub, according to Joe Moran’s On Roads.

In 2009, autographs collected by staff at the Blue Boar went on display at the services, with examples from The Beatles, The Stones, The Eagles and Dusty Springfield. Almost every ‘60s band touring the UK on the new motorway system stopped off at Watford Gap on their way to and from the capital.

Back on Britain’s first motorway, the M6 (which opened as the Preston Bypass in 1958 and was only officially completed 50 years later), CheshireLive went to see how these once futuristic, exclusive spaces hold up after 60 years.

Highway Blues on the M6

I know that road like the back of my hand, from old Wisconsin way down to no man's land— Dylan crackles out the stereo, words all garbled by the rumbling or buried under the roar of passing lorries on the motorway just a few yards from the car park.

Traffic backed up quick coming up to the footbridge, the one that looks a whole lot like a faded red narrowboat, and a convoy of cars hung a left into Sandbach Services, all deciding to wait it out.

It’s one of four service stations in Cheshire, with another – from those that brought you Tebay – perhaps on the way. More on that later. This Roadchef station is a pair of squat glass, brick and cladding boxes joined by a tired-looking old bridge.

Once inside, the drivers and their passengers, pushing the same way down the island’s arteries, stand in their own groups, talking amongst themselves, trying to not get in each other's way. Those on their own look down and look at menus and look into coffee cups and never at each other.

And never say anything to anyone else who they’ll never see again, they hope, – I think – lest their anonymity be blown and the non-place swallow them up.

Men shuffle into the toilets, feet slapping against the wet tiles. They’re in and out in seconds, struggling with their flies and hoping no one noticed the mess they made. There must be something about the road that makes a man forget how to use a urinal or how to economise on toilet paper or even flush a toilet.

Over the old bridge to a mirror of the place you just left. The same people repeat again and again. Looking down, looking through, shuffling in and out, slapping the wet floor and paying too much for a coffee cup to stare into.

It’s called a liminal space – the physical space between point A and B. A waiting room between two endless stretches of tarmac, almost everyone just passing through.

Interzone. An overlaying of every place in the whole country all at once. A place with no accent, that draws no distinction and has no connection to the earth it's built on.

The array standing 6ft apart waiting outside the McDonalds and the Chozen Noodle have been driven off the road by hunger. Everyone in WHSmith has kids dragging them around. Those in the Costa are just plain tired.

Back north to Knutsford Services, with it’s impressive, wide, windowed bridge. Unmissable, unlike Sandbach, which flies by. One of the country’s first service stations, opened in 1963, sixteen years before Sandbach, just driving under the grand glass food court you can get a sense of that initial modernist vision.

Just through the doors, lights flash and whir and buzz from fruit machines in a darkened, windowless corner across from WHSmith and a toilet. It’s empty, but there’s another, identical Lucky Coin in the strange southbound mirrored world where a fella sits alone pounding the flashing buttons, while an older couple lick at ice-cream cones and silently pick over the front pages of papers on a rack outside the twin WHSmith on that side of the motorway.

It’s busy on both sides, maybe busier than Sandbach, but all the behaviour listed before repeats itself. Especially in the toilets. Wet floor, slapping feet, haste.

Up in the food court, located on the bridge, the busy motorway is silent beneath the windows. The M&S Food is empty but the KFC is busy. A couple are told the card machine is broken in Greggs and so trudge over this way, resigned to fried chicken.

It’s a long way from the excitement and wonder the first visitors may have felt. How novel would it have been, back then, to sit at a table with a hot meal and see the wide tarmac cutting the Cheshire countryside in two below, and see the odd car trundle past along the vast grey expanse, wondering of the future, how it would be in 50, 60 years. Just how brave and new could this brave new world get?

Eighty miles further north, drivers come off the motorway and sit in rustic but modern glass buildings eating big, fresh breakfasts and delicious Sunday lunches as they look out over moors and mountains, lively ponds and a landscaped dog walk at Tebay. They buy sweets and a snack to eat near Gretna Green from the neighbouring farm shop, and head out on their way, legs stretched over something other than concrete and wet floors.

As it stands, Cheshire could get its own Tebay-style services on the M56. The Westmorland Family, owners of Tebay, submitted plans for ‘Tatton Services’ in 2022.

The plans, it should be noted, stirred some controversy earlier this year, with a councillor at neighbouring Trafford Council declaring that “pies are not special circumstances for building on Green Belt.”^[2]

Frank Skinner once proclaimed that “if there is a road to heaven, Tebay Services would be the service station on that road.”

And I think it's fair to say that Cheshire's stretch of the M6 could do with something that makes it feel a little more like the road to heaven and less like the road to .... err .... Preston.

NEWSLETTER: Sign up for CheshireLive email direct to your inbox here^[3]

Cheshire railway station revamp to 'enhance' facilities for passengers^[4]

Cheshire woman's stunning body transformation leaves her in best shape of her life at 51^[5]

References

1. ^{^} Cheshire man says he's made 500 visits to shops and bars while completely naked (www.cheshire-live.co.uk)
2. ^{^} stirred some controversy earlier this year, with a councillor at neighbouring Trafford Council declaring that “pies are not special circumstances for building on Green Belt.” (www.cheshire-live.co.uk)
3. ^{^} Sign up for CheshireLive email direct to your inbox here (www.cheshire-live.co.uk)
4. ^{^} Cheshire railway station revamp to 'enhance' facilities for passengers (www.cheshire-live.co.uk)
5. ^{^} Cheshire woman's stunning body transformation leaves her in best shape of her life at 51 (www.cheshire-live.co.uk)