American visits ‘UK’s favourite motorway services’ and sums it up in one word | UK | Travel

An American visited a “beautiful” service station that is often considered one of the best in Britain. Tebay Services in Cumbria was opened by John and Barbara Dunning in 1972 after the M6 was built through their land.

Their farm still surrounds the service station and the livestock can often be seen grazing as weary motorists stop for a break during their journeys. The service station now has its own farmshop complete with a butcher, serving meat from the Dunning family farm, and a kitchen serving homemade sandwiches, salads and seasonal soups.

YouTuber Cara, who runs the Magic Geekdom channel, tours the UK documenting her travels. She says her viewers encouraged her to check out Westmorlands Farmshop and Kitchen Tebay during a recent trip to Cumbria after it was voted the second-best service station, behind Gloucester, last year. 

Cara decided to stop at the northbound side of the service station because it is “older” and has “nicer views”. After initially scoping out her surroundings, she remarked: “What a lovely place, I think you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere like this in the US.”

Once inside the services Cara was met with a host of locally-grown strawberries and cherries. She then decided to check out the farmshop, describing the sandwiches on offer as “really good looking”.

Cara found it “amazing” how much locally-sourced produce was available in the store, likening it to the supermarket Booths. She found herself tucking into a chicken shawarma wrap and a raspberry lemonade.

Sampling the drink, she said: “That’s good, it’s tart, I like it. I don’t drink lemonade very often over here so maybe it’s this tart, it’s not as sweet as in the US.” 

She added: “For £10 that was pretty filling. It was a pretty tasty meal and probably the best meal I’ve had at a service station.”

After her visit, Cara concluded: “It is a pretty cool service station, I think cool is the right word. The only farm shop I’ve ever been to was in the Cotswolds and it was pretty fancy and this was kind of on par with that.”

Despite its success Westmorland Farmshop and Kitchen currently faces an uncertain future. According to LancsLive, National Highways plans to replace eight bridges on a five-mile stretch of the motorway. 

Both the north and southbound carriageway will have to close for two years during the work. Sarah Dunning says that while the farmshop has its own access road, major works on the motorway do hit visitor numbers.

She told The Telegraph: “Nobody is disputing that the bridges need replacing but this is going to hurt businesses, residents and farmers who use the junction as part of their everyday life. We know from previous experience that roadworks on this scale are going to affect footfall.”

She added: “People will have to go seven miles north to the next junction and drive all the way south again to get to Tebay, which they are not going to want to do. Over the course of four years or more, people are going to change their travel habits – and for businesses, that could be not just damaging but final.”

National Highways has previously said it would consider temporary slip-roads while the work was underway. It said: “Junction 38 will still remain open to traffic, apart from during a limited number of occasional overnight or weeknight closures. Our aim is to cause as little disruption as possible.”