‘Forton Services’, ‘Lancaster (Forton) Services’,or ‘Lancaster Services’; which team are you? Maybe none, and why are we interested? Heading back on the M6 from Coniston (having reluctantly passed up on buying an old mechanical Pringles machine in Windermere whilst in the area) I spotted the famous Pennine tower. Since we were hoping to come up by train the next time, and having been on the road for a bit already, why not pull over at Britain’s most famous (and, as it turns out, most dilapidated) 1960s Grade II listed services?
Ahhhh, old oil drums filled with crud and painted white with a bit of old scaff on top, the original portable barrier system. When did that disappear forever? I definitely remember it on a few unfinished estates round here in the early 90’s.
Elsewhere in the 60’s the cool kids hung out at Blue Boar, Watford;
In the 80s* it was Leigh Delamare (it was for us going between Wiltshire and London anyway!), with this RaveLine communication supercentre; (*note: culturally the 70’s are best forgotten)
But by the 90’s bands like blur preferred Heston (the services), here Damon does a quick review of the food that even Egon Ronay would have found impertinent;
The Lancaster service station is station is in a right old state and I was gobsmacked that apparently there was a £2million Northbound refurbishment in Autumn 2023. I know from working in these industries that your money doesn’t go very far in these sorts of environments, but seriously, the Southbound looks like something from the even-more-broke late 80s East German era;
Concentrate, here comes the vending bit! It turns out that they tried something at Forton that was new at the time for the UK, so new in fact that like many modern ideas it was swiftly considered to be rubbish and traditional methods swiftly re-imposed;
What a collection of machines! It really does put me in mind of Sagamihara Vending Machine Park in Japan today(also on my bucket (B+) list) and I believe that these did stay put for a bit.
This southboundamenity building had not only a “Quick Snacks” machine by the steps down to the toilets, but also a transport café, which only had Autosnacks (automat) machines, where staff loaded hot meals into the back and customers paid to release them. These were the motorway network’s first catering vending machines, and they claimed to be three times faster than being served by staff, as well as allowing staff numbers to be reduced by half. The Ministry of Transport were won round by the idea, but Rank weren’t so impressed – they removed the machines due to low demand. Bet they ended up in a skip too!
(Note for younger readers, in the old days you didn’t get McD’s and Pret at the services, the owner would impose their own idea of culinary excellence upon you through various ‘in house / own brand’ restaurants and the odd standalone burger bar, though these frequently did turn in to ‘Burger King’ franchises decades before a single service station had a Greggs, Pret or a Costa etc… In fact even in the 2000s when Starbucks was at it’s high street peak in the UK, Granada were still gunning it away creating their own in-house brands such as Caffè Ritazza etc. in an effort to keep as much profit as possible. Which to be fair is what a business does.)
There are a few tributes dotted around the rather scuzzy (I’m sorry to say) service station;
The last picture was a postcard in exchange for a voluntary 25p donation.
I’ll leave you with a picture of Sagamihara. Goodbye for now!
