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Your UK motorway service station count

One of the key pitfalls of counting something that are often somewhat interchangeable reared its head today, as my sister reminded me of one that I’d forgotten… I think my secondary school may have stopped at Pont Abraham services on the way home from our school trip to Oakwood in 2016, as I vaguely remember it being an irregular-looking one with a hut-type building, and Pont Abraham would fit that description looking at the Wikipedia image.

I investigated Sarn Park services too, as that also looked similar from its Wikipedia image… it looked less similar in Google Street View, but annoyingly, it rang a bell, and I also think I may have been there at some point… so I think I can revise my total up to 15.

Service stations are definitely harder and more annoying to count than other things, what with how most of them blend into one…

With this in mind, my new list is:
  1. Charnock Richard (M6, Welcome Break)
  2. Cobham (M25, Extra)
  3. Fleet (M3, Welcome Break)
  4. Frankley (M5, Moto)
  5. Keele (M6, Welcome Break)
  6. Leigh Delamere (M4, Moto)
  7. Magor (M4, Roadchef)
  8. Membury (M4, Welcome Break)
  9. Norton Canes (M6 Toll, Roadchef)
  10. Pont Abraham (M4, Roadchef)
  11. Reading (M4, Moto)
  12. Sarn Park (M4, Welcome Break)
  13. Stafford (M6, Moto/Roadchef)
  14. Tamworth (M42, Moto)
  15. Trowell (M1, Moto)
 
Now when it comes to these lists, should we be determining whether they are northbound or southbound? Quite often the services on each side of the motorway can be vastly different, and sometimes even be run by different operators.
 
The internationally famous Charnock Richard services on the M6 used to be a central meeting point for raves back in the day.
Dodgy access roads to the M6 north and south, and all the local roads around Camelot, were very difficult to police.
The services would suddenly get packed at ten pm, then a thousand cars would shoot off in one bloody great crocodile to a mill in the middle of nowhere.
...where I would be sent to at 5 on a Sunday morning to collect the very naughty children.
Loved it.
 
I couldn't possibly list them all. I used to have a field based role at work that consisted of covering pretty much all of England and Wales other than the very North of the country (I was working out of Bradford and live in North Somerset). As long as it's not in Scotland, the North East or along the A1(M), I've probably been there. Having a weak bladder and traveling to places of the country I didn't even know existed, I needed these alot.

I agree with @NuttySquirrel that Bridgwater is the pits. But then Bridgwater the town itself is a total dive so it's quite fitting.

I also secured a job as a Site Director for Roadchef but never started as my employer at the time wrote a large cheque to get me to stay a few days before I started. Norton Canes (where one of my interviews took place) is their flagship site and was designed to be like an airport. They used this design philosophy when kitting out sites like Strensham but the return wasn't worth the investment so they abandoned it.

I visited Gloucester when it was brand new for the first time. With the curved grass roofs, I always thought it looked like something out of Teletubbies. Something very strange as well about having an MSA doing a full on Guardian reader style thing of pretending to be all sustainable and green, yet happily sells ESSO fuel and tries to attract locals to get in to polluting cars to travel to it along a motorway to buy it's over prices goods.

@Rob has a point about listing which side of the motorway it's on. They can be very different services on each side, some built at different times with different operators running them. Stafford and Sedgemoor being examples of this.

Severn View is now probably one of the worst, a truly crappy services squeezed into a building that used to be the truckers cafe of the original MSA. But the original Severn View (which started life as Aust) was absolutely awesome! The original Severn view services building is behind the current one and is now owned by an IT company. It was sold shortly after the M4 was redirected over the Second Severn Crossing and stands on a cliff edge over looking the Severn and the first Severn Bridge. Although the IT company have locked the site down hard to deter drivers from traveling up to the old building, there's still a public footpath that runs through the site. If you walk up there, you'll find a viewing area, complete with telescopes and a plaque commemorating the completion of the Severn Bridge and the views are incredible. From here, you can access the footpath that goes alongside the M48 over the Severn Bridge and you can walk in to Wales. It's a bucket list of mine, I've walked on to the bridge but not all the way across. The path used to go over the toll booths for the other side of the motorway but I'm unsure what the set-up is down there now since the toll went and they demolished the booths.
 
Lots of them, probably far too many to remember. I'm not a fan of the overpriced farm shops though. I'm happy enough with Strensham or Watford Gap (South on both is better than North) but Beaconsfield is probably the best
 
Katy said:
Been to too many to be able to remember which, can't even list which motorways I've used with all certainty. If you're really into service stations give Auto Shenanigans a watch on Youtube, Jon's first series he did was visiting every services in Great Britain.
Click to expand...
Y'know what's interesting? I found this channel a few months ago, and it's a good watch!

In terms of services I've visited, given I have family members in Cornwall and the Midlands, I've visited a lot of service stations on the M5 and M6 over the years, and I think I've visited every service station on the M5 & M40. I'm not going to list them all in terms of northbound and southbound, as I frankly don't have the energy to do so. :p

M1
  • Toddington
  • Northampton
  • Watford Gap
  • Leicester Forest East
  • Donington Park
  • Trowell
M3
  • Fleet
M4
  • Reading
  • Chieveley
  • Membury
  • Leigh Delamere
M5
  • Frankley
  • Strensham
  • Gloucester
  • Michaelwood
  • Gordano
  • Sedgemoor
  • Bridgwater
  • Taunton Deane
  • Cullompton
  • Exeter
M6
  • Corley
  • Hilton Park
  • Stafford
  • Sandbach
  • Knutsford
  • Charnock Richard
M25
  • Cobham
M40
  • Beaconsfield
  • Ripsaw Oxford
  • Cherwell Valley
  • Warwick
M42
  • Hopwood Park
  • Tamworth
Non-motorway service stations include Cambridge on the A14, but that's all I can really think of for now.
 
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Matt N said:
One of the key pitfalls of counting something that are often somewhat interchangeable reared its head today, as my sister reminded me of one that I’d forgotten… I think my secondary school may have stopped at Pont Abraham services on the way home from our school trip to Oakwood in 2016, as I vaguely remember it being an irregular-looking one with a hut-type building, and Pont Abraham would fit that description looking at the Wikipedia image.

I investigated Sarn Park services too, as that also looked similar from its Wikipedia image… it looked less similar in Google Street View, but annoyingly, it rang a bell, and I also think I may have been there at some point… so I think I can revise my total up to 15.

Service stations are definitely harder and more annoying to count than other things, what with how most of them blend into one…

With this in mind, my new list is:
  1. Charnock Richard (M6, Welcome Break)
  2. Cobham (M25, Extra)
  3. Fleet (M3, Welcome Break)
  4. Frankley (M5, Moto)
  5. Keele (M6, Welcome Break)
  6. Leigh Delamere (M4, Moto)
  7. Magor (M4, Roadchef)
  8. Membury (M4, Welcome Break)
  9. Norton Canes (M6 Toll, Roadchef)
  10. Pont Abraham (M4, Roadchef)
  11. Reading (M4, Moto)
  12. Sarn Park (M4, Welcome Break)
  13. Stafford (M6, Moto/Roadchef)
  14. Tamworth (M42, Moto)
  15. Trowell (M1, Moto)
Click to expand...
As @Jonathan bumped the thread, I may as well update. Since I last posted here, I’ve visited Sedgemoor on the M5:
  1. Charnock Richard (M6, Welcome Break)
  2. Cobham (M25, Extra)
  3. Fleet (M3, Welcome Break)
  4. Frankley (M5, Moto)
  5. Keele (M6, Welcome Break)
  6. Leigh Delamere (M4, Moto)
  7. Magor (M4, Roadchef)
  8. Membury (M4, Welcome Break)
  9. Norton Canes (M6 Toll, Roadchef)
  10. Pont Abraham (M4, Roadchef)
  11. Reading (M4, Moto)
  12. Sarn Park (M4, Welcome Break)
  13. Sedgemoor (M5, Welcome Break)
  14. Stafford (M6, Moto/Roadchef)
  15. Tamworth (M42, Moto)
  16. Trowell (M1, Moto)
I have a conundrum for you, though. I have now started periodically visiting Monmouth services, on the A40, during my driving lessons. However, I’ve never actually gone in… we do a forward bay park and a reverse bay park and leave again. If I’ve gone into the car park, but not gone into the building itself, can I say I’ve visited?

I don’t properly count service stations, so this conundrum won’t exactly keep me up at night, but I just thought it was an interesting point to consider…
 
Craig said:
Hey be glad this is only UK service stations, because I could write an essay on the awesome stuff at one of the service stations in Sweden with @John, @Burbs and @Rob back in August 😂. (Hmmmmm, the start a continental one or not?)
Click to expand...
Never have I felt like paying for the loos was actually worth it until that trip!
 
Matt N said:
Since I last posted here, I’ve visited Sedgemoor on the M5:
  1. Sedgemoor (M5, Welcome Break)
Click to expand...
My local services (10 min drive) but I'm presuming you've only visited the northbound since you've listed it as Welcome Break ? The southbound is completely different. It's bigger, far more modern and is a Roadchef. I know you like specifics Matt, and I'm afraid to say you've only visited Sedgemoor northbound. I request an immediate edit to your post to correct this shocking error. 😉
 
Matt.GC said:
My local services (10 min drive) but I'm presuming you've only visited the northbound since you've listed it as Welcome Break ? The southbound is completely different. It's bigger, far more modern and is a Roadchef. I know you like specifics Matt, and I'm afraid to say you've only visited Sedgemoor northbound. I request an immediate edit to your post to correct this shocking error. 😉
Click to expand...
That is correct. I have only visited the northbound end, as I went on the way back up the M5 from Brean in September.

I never realised that northbound and southbound were so different at Sedgemoor. The only reason I didn’t differentiate between northbound and southbound is because for most of the services in the list, I couldn’t actually remember which side(s) I’d been to… I know that I’ve been to all of the service stations I’ve listed, but for many, I can’t actually remember which side(s) of each I’ve been to and when…

I thought that if nothing else, I should at least be consistent!
 
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Matt N said:
As @Jonathan bumped the thread, I may as well update. Since I last posted here, I’ve visited Sedgemoor on the M5:
  1. Charnock Richard (M6, Welcome Break)
  2. Cobham (M25, Extra)
  3. Fleet (M3, Welcome Break)
  4. Frankley (M5, Moto)
  5. Keele (M6, Welcome Break)
  6. Leigh Delamere (M4, Moto)
  7. Magor (M4, Roadchef)
  8. Membury (M4, Welcome Break)
  9. Norton Canes (M6 Toll, Roadchef)
  10. Pont Abraham (M4, Roadchef)
  11. Reading (M4, Moto)
  12. Sarn Park (M4, Welcome Break)
  13. Sedgemoor (M5, Welcome Break)
  14. Stafford (M6, Moto/Roadchef)
  15. Tamworth (M42, Moto)
  16. Trowell (M1, Moto)
I have a conundrum for you, though. I have now started periodically visiting Monmouth services, on the A40, during my driving lessons. However, I’ve never actually gone in… we do a forward bay park and a reverse bay park and leave again. If I’ve gone into the car park, but not gone into the building itself, can I say I’ve visited?

I don’t properly count service stations, so this conundrum won’t exactly keep me up at night, but I just thought it was an interesting point to consider…
Click to expand...
Time for an update to the slightly strange counting thread I completely forgot I once made... on my recent trip to East Anglia, I managed to visit a new services on the M6 east of Birmingham (a whole stretch of motorway I'd never driven along before!) in the form of Rugby services!
  1. Charnock Richard (M6, Welcome Break)
  2. Cobham (M25, Extra)
  3. Fleet (M3, Welcome Break)
  4. Frankley (M5, Moto)
  5. Keele (M6, Welcome Break)
  6. Leigh Delamere (M4, Moto)
  7. Magor (M4, Roadchef)
  8. Membury (M4, Welcome Break)
  9. Norton Canes (M6 Toll, Roadchef)
  10. Pont Abraham (M4, Roadchef)
  11. Reading (M4, Moto)
  12. Rugby (M6, Moto)
  13. Sarn Park (M4, Welcome Break)
  14. Sedgemoor (M5, Welcome Break)
  15. Stafford (M6, Moto/Roadchef)
  16. Strensham (M5, Roadchef)
  17. Tamworth (M42, Moto)
  18. Trowell (M1, Moto)
It was actually very, very nice as service stations go, and definitely one of the nicest I've been to, which was what spurred me to bump the thread! It was all very new, clean and shiny, and I had a very nice Sausage, Bean and Cheese Melt from the Greggs inside!

I also just remembered that I went to Strensham services not that long ago, but clearly it wasn’t remarkable enough for me to want to update this thread with it…
 
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Can't say I pay much attention which services I've stopped at as I don't drive myself so I'm always the passenger. I know as a family we use Hartshead Moor and Wetherby Services for a loo break when we are driving down the A1 or M62. But instead of services we actually use shopping centres sometimes to stop off for a coffee and stretch our legs. Sheffield Meadowhall is extremely convenient when going along the M1 and you need to stop for supplies and I recall using Banbury Gateway to break up a long drive down to Paulton's Park.
 
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