DETOURS WORTH MAKING
SUMMER TRIPS INEVITABLY INVOLVE A LITTLE MOTORWAY MONOTONY. TAKE THE NEXT EXIT, SAYS TRAVIS ELBOROUGH, TO DISCOVER A WORLD OF DIVERSIONS EN ROUTE
“Over coffee we mused on all the times we’d settled for a flaccid chill-cabinet sandwich by a lay-by”
There is no getting away from it, motorways are mostly ‘dull, grey, and long’, as the great 90s electro pop band Saint Etienne once put it. There could almost be a natural law of motorway travel that states that whatever we gain in terms of speed and efficiency seems to be offset by a corresponding increase in mind-numbing monotony. As for taking a break from the road, most service stations are scarcely much more exciting (or even inviting) than the hard shoulder. Like the motorways network itself (with its uniform signage, concrete flyovers and slip roads), the predominance of big chain eateries and familiar coffee shops only further serve to iron out regional differences, rendering a stop in one place almost indistinguishable from another. But if most of us have to use motorways, we don’t necessarily have to be slaves to their routes and amenities.
The penny dropped for me a few years ago, when we were driving up the M1 from Rugby to Wakefield. Faced with a somewhat underwhelming-looking service station outside Nottingham, we paused to glance at the map and spotted the Attenborough Nature Centre. It was the name that really did it, if I’m honest. Here, a little way off junction 25 of the M1, appeared to be a whole wildlife reserve christened in honour of the presenter of such natural history classics as Life on Earth and
Blue Planet. Obviously it wasn’t. The reserve is
in the village of Attenborough, though, and, as we were to discover, he did officially open it in 1966. But – and call us immature – the notion of a Sir David Attenborough-themed nature park tickled us enough to make us turn off the motorway to investigate. On paper, the distance was only three and half miles. But the contrast from the traffic-clogged asphalt we left to the expanse of wetlands that we finally reached – dotted with islands and ringed with willows and wildflowers, teeming with birdlife and butterflies – was so extreme, it almost felt like we’d slipped into a parallel world.
Having made a £3 donation for parking, we found a café with an outdoor deck offering impeccable views of a lake. We ate an excellent lunch of locally sourced, home-cooked food, while keeping an eye out for otters, plovers and terns. Over coffee we mused on all the times we’d settled for a flaccid chill-cabinet sandwich by a lorry park or lay-by. We vowed then and there, where possible, to try to make the effort to look beyond motorway exit roads for our pitstops. Equally, instead of letting whole swathes of the country slip by on anonymous stretches of motorway, why did we not turn off more often, and see things of interest or local character? After all, what were we really saving if every road trip we took was as ‘dull, grey and long’ as the other? Life really is too short to prize the final destination over the journey we must take to get there.
M1: NORTHERN LIGHTS
Bolsover Castle, S44 6PR; junction 29A Voted Britain’s ‘spookiest castle’ by staff at English Heritage in 2017, this Derbyshire fort is seemingly afflicted by an array of spectral apparitions. A ghostly small boy grabs visitors’ hands. Muffled voices are heard in the hallways and cold sensations experienced in certain state rooms. A spectacular Stuart-era mansion built beside, and inspired by, the ruins of an original Norman fortress, Bolsover Castle has history, along with spectres in spades. Its tearoom, too, offers cakes based on historical recipes, making a flight from the modern world and the nearby motorway feel almost complete. Elsewhere: Clifton Park and Museum, Rotherham, S65 2AA; J33 or J34. Home to »
Yorkshire’s largest free playground, its adventure park, skatepark, crazy golf course, loos and food vans, could be a good place for bored younger passengers to let off some steam. Sherwood Forest, Mansfield, NG21 9HN; J27, 28 or 29. A little bit more of a schlep but this slice of ancient English greenwood, the forest famous the world over for the mythic deeds of Robin Hood, lies a mere 25 minutes from the motorway.
M1: SIGHTS DOWN SOUTH
Wrest Park, MK45 4HR; 6 miles from junction 12 For nearly 700 years, Wrest Park in Bedfordshire was the country seat of the de Grey family. The main house is a rare example of a French-style chateau in England. But it’s the 92 acres of gardens that boast an epic Baroque pavilion, a formal canal, an orangery and follies aplenty, including a Mithraic altar, that are a true tonic to travellers wearying of Britain’s longest motorway.
Elsewhere: Dunstable Downs and
Whipsnade Estate, LU6 2GY; J9. Rather less manicured but no less lovely are the chalk grasslands of Dunstable Downs. There are fine views from the top, a plethora of footpaths, and a National Trust café and gift shop. National Space Centre, LE4 5NS; J21 or J21a. Swap stop signs and taillights for the stars at Leicester’s National Space Centre, which has the UK’s largest planetarium among its informative whizzy delights.
M4: WESTWARD FOUND
Steam Museum of the Great Western
Railway, SN2 2EY; junction 16 Break a car journey with a visit to a museum dedicated to that more romantic mode of transport: the steam age railway locomotive of the Great Western Railway – or God’s Wonderful Railway, as it was affectionately known. Elsewhere: Dyrham Park, near Bath, SN14 8HY; J18. With a herd of fallow deer roaming an ancient 270-acre park, plus a grand 17th century house and gardens, Dyrham Park is imbued with a sense of majesty largely missing from the M4.
Bryngarw Country Park, near Bridgend,
CF32 8UU; J36. Comprised of over 100 acres of native woodland, sweeping meadows, formal gardens and rushing rivers, and featuring a children’s play area, café and picnic and barbecue areas, this country park offers natural beauty but also plenty to amuse youngsters afflicted by Are-We-There-Yet blues. Cwmcerrig
Farm, near Llanelli, SA14 7HU; J49. Run by the Watkins Family, farmers in this corner of Wales since the 1950s, the Cwmcerrig shop boasts a superb range of locally produced goods (Welsh cakes and homemade pies a speciality) and a rather fine adjoining restaurant.
M5: MIDLANDS & MORE
Worcester Cathedral, WR1 2LA; junction 7 With its medieval cloisters and lovely Victorian stained-glass windows, Worcester cathedral is well worth the couple of miles’ detour from the M5. It houses one of the largest collections of medieval manuscripts in the UK, and also the tomb of ‘Bad’ King John – the autocratic monarch who was forced to sign the Magna Carta, giving greater rights to the people – after clashing with his barons and the Church. Elsewhere: The Wellington Monument, near Taunton, TA21 9NX; J26 or J27. First commissioned in 1817 to mark Wellington’s victory at Waterloo, this obelisk on the Blackdown Hills lies at the end of an avenue of beech trees and in an area of natural beauty, a short hop from the M5.
Clevedon Pier and Seafront, BS21 7QU; J20. Described as the ‘most beautiful pier in England’ by Sir John Betjeman, the daddy-long-legs delight that is Clevedon’s Victorian pier – and all the seaside attractions of this charming coastal resort overlooking the Severn Estuary – are barely two miles from the M5. Diggerland, near Cullompton, EX15 2PE; J27 or J28. The truck stop to surpass all other truck »
“The chateau and gardens are a true tonic to those wearying of Britain’s longest motorway”
stops, Diggerland is an adventure theme park dedicated all things dumper truckrelated, where kids and adults get to operate specially modified machinery.
M6: NORTH WEST WONDERS
Tebay Services, CA10 3SB, between junctions 38 & 39 With a reputation for the quality of its food, much of it sourced from its own farm next door, the award-winning Tebay Services has become a destination in its own right. This family-run concern, operating from two sites on either side of the M6 in the scenic Lake District, counts cafés, a farm shop, duck pond, children’s play area, a country hotel and a caravan park among its impeccable facilities.
Elsewhere: Tatton Park, Knutsford, WA16 6QN; J19. With not one but two mansions and over 50 acres of gardens, a deer park, working farm, café and shop, the estate at Tatton Park is impressive to say the least. But its elegant Japanese Gardens are an especially welcome balm for anyone seeking to settle nerves jarred by the travails of motorway travel. Sizergh
Castle, near Kendal, LA8 8DZ; J36. This Cumbrian castle has medieval roots as well as Elizabethan and more modern embellishments. Its gardens and a recently revamped café mean it’s a rather picturesque spot to stop off for something to eat, to stretch the legs and even pick up some produce or a plant from their shop.
M25: OFF THE ORBITAL
Lullingstone Roman Villa, DA4 0JA; junction 3 The Romans were enthusiastic road makers, and many of our modern highways, such as part of the M20 from Canterbury, which lies along the old Roman Stone Street to Lympne, follow the same routes as their forebears. Given the Romans’ fondness for circuses, they might well have approved of the orbital M25, which in places skirts their ancient Watling Street from London to Dover. But for those wishing to escape its whirlpool and commune with that lost land of centurions, the remains of a Roman villa, with some of the finest surviving examples of mosaics and wall paintings, are to be found at Lullingstone near Eynsford in Kent and just a stone’s throw from the motorway.
“Instead of letting swathes of the country slip by on the motorway, why do we not turn off more often?”
Elsewhere: Down House, near Orpington, BR6 7JT; J4. Down House is the former family home of the scientist and pioneer of the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin. You can visit the room in which he wrote
On the Origin of Species, explore the garden where he studied the natural world at close quarters, and take lunch in a café housed in what was the great man’s kitchen. Rendezvous Café, near Caterham, CR3 0BL; J6. A classic roadside ‘caff’ of the old school, replete with Formica tables and prized by passing lorry drivers, locals and genuinely discerning aficionados of fry-ups. Caterham’s Rendezvous Café dishes up the fullest of English breakfasts within the purlieus of the M25. »