Opened 1965 / Height 20 meters
Mark Brown, The Guardian, November 2012
During a tour of the M1 and M6 catering facilities in June 1966 — an unenviable assignment nowadays — the Daily Telegraph’s Gabor Denes and his wife pulled off the motorway into Forton (now Lancaster) services. Having already eaten lunch 50 miles south, the couple asked for a pot of tea and a scone rather than the full set menu in the tower’s restaurant. Told they would have to visit the cafeteria on the ground floor instead, the couple objected that the restaurant was nearly empty. With the sense to recognise a Daily Telegraph reporter, the head waiter conceded. Mr and Mrs Denes were ushered to one of the restaurant’s window seats.
‘Our bill was a modest 4s (for two),’ wrote Gabor happily, ‘well worth it for the view alone.’
Daily Telegraph, June 1966
Not everyone was so enthusiastic about the new structure. In a letter to the Times Editor, the previous year, a Manchester resident had complained, ‘you illustrate today the new Pennine Tower restaurant from which a view of the Pennine range, the Lake District hills, and so on can be obtained. You omit to say that this unpleasant and obtrusive object can equally be seen from these areas.’
I decide to visit the tower on a Saturday in August during the school holidays. When I turn off the M6 into the service area, an attendant in a high viz jacket ushers me into one of the few remaining spaces, an experience not unlike parking at IKEA on the weekend.
Up close, the tower demands attention once you look past the scruffy paintwork. The original tinted glass of the restaurant’s windows remains in tact. Looking up at the tower’s underbelly, it is also possible to make out the concrete branches that support the restaurant’s eye, and curve gently from the centre to the outer edge of each hexagon piece.
Other commuters hurry past me without an upwards glance. Yet when it first opened, the tower was a destination even graced by the Beatles, as Simon Usborne explains.
‘Designed to resemble an air traffic control tower, it evoked the exclusivity of airline travels. At the top, chefs in white hats manned a swanky carvery to which diners would flock, whether or not they happened to be on the M6.’
Independent extra, November 2008
Once inside the service area though, it is almost impossible to find any evidence of the tower being there. Searching for the lift that transported diners up to its restaurant, I walk into a cleaning cupboard to the bemusement of the attendant on duty.
All I find is a set of framed images on the wall outside the toilets (the lift entrance having apparently been boarded up after a group broke in and filmed themselves lift surfing). The frames show off the original architectural plans and a photo from the early 1980s showcasing the first-ever sub-post office at a service area. By then, however, the decline was irreversible. The tower’s restaurant was turned into a transport café before closing.
And even though the tower gained listed status in 2012, its owner (Moto) apparently has said the tower has no ‘viable use’ .
We are in the middle of a global pandemic, making me reluctant to hang around in a busy service station for too long. Back in the car and with a view of the petrol station, I drink my takeaway coffee, envying the Denes’ high tea and panorama of the fells fifty years ago.
Maybe it’s not too late for tower. If Kevin McCloud and the Hairy Bikers joined forces … what better a location for a venue showcasing Lancashire’s stunning scenery and ‘first class produce’?
Cheered by the prospect of Si and Dave opening an upmarket biker cafe in the tower’s former restaurant, I set off. The slip to re-join the motorway is designed for when there was less traffic and everyone is going on holiday to the Lake District this year. There is no road left, so I am forced to pull out anyway. A Range-rover who refuses to budge blares their horn. I thump the steering wheel in retaliation. But this is a fairly new car and I still haven’t worked out all the controls, and accidentally turn on the windscreen wipers instead.
Want to visit?
By car, Lancaster services can be accessed from both the southbound and northbound side of the M6 between Junction 32 and 33. The Pennine Tower is located on the northbound site. The service station is open to the public but the tower is now permanently closed. If arriving at the southbound side, the northbound site can be accessed over a footbridge (there is also a good view of the tower over the motorway from the footbridge shown in the image above).
In search of the view 