Inside ‘appalling' £14m space-age tower once home to UK's highest motorway restaurant that's rotted away for 35 years

The Irish Sun

29-05-2025

AN ABANDONED tower which was once home to the UK's highest motorway restaurant continues to rot away decades after its closure.
The Forton Services, close to
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Forton Services, located on the M6 motorway, was the location of The Pennine Tower restaurant
Credit: Alamy
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The hexagonal tower under construction in December 1964
Credit: Getty
The eye-catching hexagonal Pennine Tower formed part of the complex, and quickly became the site of a posh restaurant for famished drivers.
Diners regularly tucked into grilled rainbow trout, fillet steaks, lobster, and local favourites like Lancashire Hot Pot and potted shrimps.
It boasted dramatic views of the nearby Morecambe Bay and was likened to a UFO by some visitors.
The Forton Services also came complete with self-service cafeterias, baby changing facilities, and showers for lorry drivers.
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Noreen Blackburn, a former waitress at the Pennine Tower, shared her experiences working at the now-dormant eatery.
She said: "As I was eager to learn, my next job was serving tea and coffee tea was made in a huge teapot and poured as necessary coaches made the place very busy.
"The phrase used was the 'tea and pee brigade'.
"However, my greatest wish was to be a waitress in the 'tower' and I really pushed the catering manager to consider me.
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"The uniform was so chic in a shade of mid-green with a pencil slim skirt which had to be just above knee level, a white blouse, a waistcoat with shiny chrome buttons and a Top Rank emblem embroidered on it."
The shine quickly wore off, with the restaurant slammed as "an insult to one's taste buds" by prominent food critic Egon Ronay.
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The Forton Services became better known as a rendez-vous point for truckers and pulled the plug in 1989.
Recognising its significance, they awarded the tower Grade II listed status in 2012.
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Detailing its pedigree, the Historic England website says: "Forton demonstrated a new popularist architecture ideally suited to the democratic new aesthetic of the motorway.
"The Pennine Tower Restaurant acting both as a beacon to attract the passing motorists and as a glamorous vantage point from which they were able to enjoy spectacular prospects of the motorway below and more extensively over the miles of surrounding countryside through which they [are] passing."
Historic England also selected the Pennine Tower amongst eight pieces of architectural prowess inspired by the 1960s space race, culminating in 1969's lunar landing.
It cited Forton services as an example of 'Space-age architecture', cheekily describing it as a "Star Wars ship next to a motorway".
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Online user Rob590 fondly recalled his visits to the unique building.
"[In the '90s] Forton was one of the first buildings I grew to love," he said.
"From our end it was the first landmark that you were going somewhere - Preston, Blackpool, Manchester or maybe even further.
"It seemed impossibly huge, and to my eyes reinforced that we'd left our rural county for something bigger, modern and better."
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The building was awarded listed status by English Heritage
Credit: Alamy