The Pennine Tower at Forton Services

If you’ve ever driven along the stretch of the M6 which passes the Forest of Bowland between the cities of Lancaster and Preston you can’t have failed to notice the unique hexagonal Pennine tower at Forton services and you’ve probably wondered what it is.

Now a grade two listed building it was opened in 1965 as a restaurant offering panoramic views across the Fylde plains and Bowland fells.

In the optimistic, forward-looking spirit of the sixties the architects, T P Bennett and son, designed the tower to resemble an air traffic control tower.

It is built from reinforced concrete and is 65ft tall, the hexagonal, cantilevered restaurant is 74ft across and has two levels, one was the restaurant itself, the other was intended as a sun deck.

Local Landmark

The tower is now a local landmark and has the nickname ‘the mushroom’, up until 1989 when it closed it became quite famous. (It was also reputed to be part of the UK’s secret Cold War ‘backbone’ network of microwave communication towers)

Originally opened as an up-market restaurant with unsurpassable views it became a destination for people wanting somewhere modern, fast, and different, it was also one of the first places in the area to sell Cappucinos! which alone drew people from far and wide.

Being part of the Forton services the bar in the tower had a license to stay open late (this is when motorway service stations had licensed bars) and people used to go there to spot interesting travellers and celebrities passing through.

The Beatles were said to have travelled the 70 miles from Liverpool to experience the restaurant’s cosmopolitan atmosphere and in 1986 the cult Indie band ‘Half man half biscuit’ paid tribute to this in the music video for ‘Dickie Davies Eyes’, which was filmed at the tower.

Sadly the 120 seat restaurant, with its relaxed, waitered, window tables, and American style counter and stools for fast food, had to be closed in 1989 as it fell foul of new fire regulations, having only a central lift shaft as entrance and exit and no external fire escape it was deemed unsafe.

Design flaws

Businesses had always struggled to operate in the building as quite often deliveries to the kitchen couldn’t be brought up the lift and the working space in the tower was too small, this design flaw raised running costs and as the successive owners of the services charged ever higher and more exorbitant rents this also didn’t help matters.

The tower is now only used as storage and not accessible to the public, as is the bridge over the M6 which had to undergo repairs after it was hit by a HGV in 2005 which caused severe damage to the structure, it’s a shame really as the views from there must be absolutely amazing and it was a brilliantly conceived idea.

If you want to look at what the tower and its stylish 60s interior looked like originally the architectural firm, T.P Bennett, that designed it has a whole album of photos on their website which is in the link earlier in this article.

A B-H