Are we nearly there yet? These service stations are worth stopping at

Times

24-05-2025

You don't go to buy knobbly condoms from the vending machines in the gents. You don't go to pick up leaflets on nearby animal attractions of dubious welfare standards from the racks at the entrance. And you sure as Shell don't go to play the fruit machines and arcade games in the 'FunZone' (a racing simulator? After we've just done three hours on the M4? Are you having a laugh?).
No, you visit a motorway service station because you're hungry, you're bored, you're tired, you want a wee, and your other half's overpacking — and your subsequent sharing of the footwell with two suitcases and a boules set — means that you lost sensation in your left leg two traffic jams ago.
In short, you hit that exit on to the slip road out of naked need, not wild desire. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't shop around ('Just hold it in for another 18 miles, darling!'), because a survey from the consumer group Which? this bank holiday weekend reveals (reveals!) that some rest stops are better than others.
The M5's Gloucester services comes out on top — no surprise to those who've experienced the cheese and patisserie counters in its farmshop, which make it basically the Fortnum's of the forecourt world. Bottom is Moto's Bridgwater services (also on the M5), where survey respondents noted that the toilets 'smelt of stale urine'. (They wanted fresh urine?)
Lancaster (M6) and Leeming Bar (A1(M)) join Bridgwater at the bottom of the table, putting the pits into pitstop (I said pits); while Tebay and Rugby (both M6) are kings of the road(chef) at No 2 and No 3, with wood, glass and sourdough combining to create spaces of natural daylight that smell of geraniums, not regret.
From Watford Gap to Scotch Corner, though, whether you're looking at a bog-standard Wild Bean Café or one of those exotic ones that has a Chopstix, what they all have in common is their commonality. Service stations remain one of the country's last great levellers: a place where truckers, toddlers, goths, golfers, CEOs, stag doers, and retired people picking out matching pastel fleeces from Cotton Traders all share loo queues, sandwich shelves and even the odd tight-lipped half-smile of fellow-feeling. Roadside is where we all come together — not by choice, obviously, but in that uniquely British, mutual-eyeroll, make-the-best-of-it, 'well at least there's a WH Smith' sort of way.
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Italian Autogrills might serve espresso so smooth that it could charm your nonna, and German Rasthofs may be cleaner than most Harley Street clinics, but the tiny scale of our islands means that every stop here is a significant step on our way, a 'Not much further! Might as well get a mint Magnum!' moment of marked progress. They're a place where calories don't count and time doesn't exist — but they're also the great markers of its passing, the milestones in our life journeys. School trip? Bundle off the bus for those first breaths of independence and pawfuls of sweets your parents would never let you have. Off to university? Skid into Phone Tech and browse the baffling range of wires for that charging cable forgotten amid the excitement and nerves. Wedding season? Pull in to redo your tie or hat before arriving, because you'll be looking at these photos for the rest of your life. Fiftieth birthdays? Too harried to shop properly, so a last-minute gift (they'll love that half-price Anton Du Beke book). On the way back from a funeral? Have an appropriately mournful cardboard cuppa at a picnic table by the car park, contemplating mortality and how on earth Costa can charge almost £5 for this.
So no, our service stations aren't pretty, or welcoming, or even — in the case of a full 43 of those looked at by Which? — acceptably clean. But they're important. They're human. They're ours.
• Read our full travel guide to the UK
Which is your favourite service station in the UK? Let us know in the comments