Newport Pagnell Services | |
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Location in Buckinghamshire, England | |
Information | |
County | Buckinghamshire |
Road | M1 |
Coordinates: | 52°04′59″N0°44′55″W / 52.0831°N 0.7485°W |
Operator | Welcome Break |
Date opened | 2 November 1959[ citation needed ] |
Website | welcomebreak |
Newport Pagnell Services is a motorway service station between junctions 14 and 15 of the M1 motorway near Newport Pagnell in the City of Milton Keynes, north Buckinghamshire, England. It is owned and operated by Welcome Break.
The proposals for the site were read to Newport Pagnell Rural District council on Wednesday 29 May 1957 at Little Linford. [1] Most of the site, on the northbound is in Great Linford.
Four service stations on the M1 were planned - each of 10 acres (4.0 ha) - Toddington, Newport Pagnell, Rothersthorpe, and one near Ashby St Ledgers in Northamptonshire. [2] The petrol site was run by Blue Star Garages. [3]
In February 1960, North Buckinghamshire Licensing Magistrates was asked to approve a table licence for alcoholic drinks, which was refused by the twelve magistrates (eight men and four women), in a two and a half hours hearing. The application had been made by Hubert Pinder. The British Travel and Holiday Association wanted the alcohol licence, as it thought that overseas visitors would be puzzled to be refused alcohol. Motorway service stations were licensed in Germany and Italy, and open all night.
Against the alcohol licensing were Superintendent Laurence Harman, of the local police, and Brigadier Sir Richard Gambier-Parry, who had business interests in breweries in Northamptonshire and Cambridgeshire. [4] [5] [6] Other opposition included the vicar (Rev J.J. Williams, who admitted that he was not a teetotaller) from the local PCC, representatives from the Buckingham branch of the Women's Total Abstinence Union (Mrs G Greenstreet), the Baptist (Rev Arthur Davies) and Methodist churches; in the UK, the temperance movement was supported by the nonconformist churches, such as the Methodists or Quakers. The Methodist Sir Titus Salt built the model village Saltaire without any pubs, and likewise Quaker George Cadbury built Bournville without any pubs. But there were pubs alongside most non-motorway roads. Grantham North services, as Tony's Cafe, was granted a table licence for its restaurant, by local magistrates, in April 1968. [7]
The site would cost £120,000 for catering, and £200,000 for the whole site. [lower-alpha 1] Representing Pinder was James Burge, who said that the people opposing were delivering propaganda, and were seeking to 'apply prohibition on the motorway'; he added that 'prohibition would ensure that perhaps 30 or 40 people in a coach could not have a drink with their meals'. In the plans, alcohol would be provided only with meals. Eric Fisher was to be the architect. [8] Due to the refusal of the table licence, Forte reduced the restaurants from four to three, reducing the construction cost from £120,000 to £90,000. The high-class expensive restaurant, requiring the table licence, would not be built. Mr H Henshall, the managing director, said that there would be a snack bar, a self-service unit, and a grill and griddle, with waiter service. The workforce would be reduced from 100 to 75. [9]
Newport Pagnell Services was the one of the first two service stations to be opened in the UK, when both it and Watford Gap opened for fuel (only) on 2 November 1959.[ citation needed ] It was the first to open catering facilities: the northbound café opened on Monday 15 August 1960, [10] and the southbound restaurant followed on 17 September 1960.[ citation needed ] The cost was £250,000, [lower-alpha 2] to employ 82 catering staff. It was the first time that the 'services' sign was seen on UK roads, previously to this it had been a 'fuel' sign. [11] The site was built by Laing. [12]
Like the motorway, the site was designed by Sir Owen Williams. The services were opened by Forte, and were taken over by Welcome Break in 1988.
The service station is one of fourteen for which large murals were commissioned from artist David Fisher in the 1990s, designed to reflect the local area and history. [13]
The quick service cafeteria, seating 200, opened at 8 am on Monday 15 August 1960. The grill and griddle restaurant, with waitress service, opened on Wednesday or Thursday, later that week. In the late 1980s the cafeteria was replaced by the self-service Granary Barbecue, which served a beefburger for £3.95 and sirloin steak for £5.95 in 1990. Sweets, priced at £1.35 each in 1990, now included cheesecakes and Black Forest gateau. [14] The site was soon serving 40,000 customers a week. [15]
The first crash barriers on British motorways were built, at a cost of £2 million, southwards from Newport Pagnell to Scratchwood from May 1971, being finished in late October 1971, as far north as the M6 junction in Northamptonshire. On Sunday 2 May 1971, late in the evening, 35 year old Ken Loach was driving towards London, and his estate car was knocked onto the central reservation, where his wife was injured, his wife's grandmother was killed, with his five year old son Nicholas. [16]
On 3 September 2007, a National Express coach from Birmingham to Luton Airport and Stansted Airport (making an unscheduled stop) failed to make a turn on the approach road and overturned. A number of people including the driver were seriously injured. The driver was subsequently convicted of drink driving and dangerous driving. [17]
Newport Pagnell is a town and civil parish in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. The Office for National Statistics records Newport Pagnell as part of the Milton Keynes urban area.
Great Linford is a historic village, district and wider civil parish in the north of Milton Keynes, England, between Wolverton and Newport Pagnell, and roughly 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Central Milton Keynes.
Little Linford is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Haversham-cum-Little Linford, in the City of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England. Located near the M1 motorway, the village is about 2 miles (3.2 km) north-west of Newport Pagnell and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) north of Central Milton Keynes. The village is separated from its neighbour and namesake Great Linford by the floodplain of the River Great Ouse. In 1931 the parish had a population of 45. On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished and merged with Haversham to form "Haversham cum Little Linford".
Wootton is a former village about 3 miles (4.8 km) south of Northampton town centre that is now part of Northampton.
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This history of Milton Keynes details its development from the earliest human settlements, through the plans for a 'new city' for 250,000 people in northern Southeast England, its subsequent urban design and development, to the present day. Milton Keynes, founded in 1967, is the largest settlement and only city in Buckinghamshire. At the 2021 census, the population of its urban area was estimated to have exceeded 256,000.
MK Metro was a bus company operating in Milton Keynes from 1997 until 2010.
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The Newport Pagnell Canal was a 1.25 mile canal in Buckinghamshire that ran from the Grand Junction Canal at Great Linford to Newport Pagnell through seven locks. Construction was authorised by an Act of Parliament in June 1814 and it probably opened in 1817. It closed in 1864, with part of the route used for the line of a railway.
The Wolverton–Newport Pagnell line was a railway branch line in Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom running from Wolverton on the London and North Western Railway (LNWR) to Newport Pagnell. The line fully opened to passengers in 1867. An extension to Olney was planned in 1865, but this scheme was abandoned after partial construction. Earthworks along the route of the extension still exist in Bury Field, and plaques exist detailing the history of the failed project.
On 3 September 2007, a National Express single-decker coach, travelling southbound on the M1 motorway was involved in a crash. It was operating the 777 service from Birmingham to London Stansted Airport, via London Luton Airport, and had recently stopped at Coventry. There were 33 passengers on board at the time of the accident, of whom 30 were injured, six seriously.