To think this tower is creepy?

[WhichOneIsPosher]

Driving up the M6 today and stopped for a comfort break at Lancaster services. We've never stopped at this service station so never noticed this tower before but AIBU to think there's something creepy about it?

Believe it or not it’s grade 2 listed 😂

Does anyone else remember that TV programme, maybe about 10 years ago? They showed what the world would look like if humans vanished. What would happen after a day, a year, 100 years.

The greenery on Brutalist architecture makes me think of that. Nature reclaiming the world, plants and trees pushing through concrete…

Oooh not read a Stephen King for over 20 years! What’s it called?!

I think it’s Trucks

Its brutalist and fabulous, not creepy imo and should be preserved.

Found a website about that last night with pics of the inside, the viewing deck looks very dangerous

https://motorwayservices.uk/The_Pennine_Tower

If it's what I'm thinking, I'm already off M6 before that... the nearly home church is close to my favourite farm/country food shop/butchers though so even better 😋

"Not even Chieveley, you don't stop at Chieveley?"

OP it kind of looks sapient, like an alien machine that might come to life. I quite like it, as I like brutalist stuff, but I could also imagine it as the scene of a massacre in something like The Handmaid's Tale, so I can understand your thoughts.

Agreed OP it definitely has an ‘off’ vibe.

Urgh, it’s vile. I didn’t even know there was something called brutalist architecture, the name itself is grim. It reminds me of those photos of Chernobyl, everything abandoned and eerie.
I always wondered what happened with those 1970’s ugly grey concrete houses and just assumed they got passed through generations and no one knew what to do with them. I didn’t realise people actually liked them 😂

@FlipFlopVibe its called Brutalist as Brut means dry in French, raw concrete called Beton Brut. it was pioneered by French Architect LeCorbusier, it worked better in the south of france though where there isn’t loads of rain to make it green and leaky. It was an absolute disaster is Glasgow and Newcastle in the 6o’s It’s a very interesting period though

It probably had a nice restaurant up there for people to enjoy the view. People used to go for a day out when service stations were a novelty.

We always called it Forton and I loved looking out for it and stopping there. We lived in Cumbria and the rest of our family was on the Wirral so we regularly drove up and down that section of the M6.

The only brut I know is in relation to champagne 😂 I do live in the north so that’s probably why I see it looking so bad, if at all

Now I want to know where that is!

Looks like a giant mushroom. Not really my architectural taste.

Not creepy, fascinating. It was a luxury restaurant back when the services first opened years ago, before they realised there was more money in feeding people deep-fried garbage like they do now. It's been disused for years, which I think is sad, as it's architecturally very interesting.

I think it was more that they’d badly miscalculated the demand for a luxury restaurant there, not realised most people en route to the lakes or Scotland would just want a tea and a wee. It would only have been accessible to motorists from the M6 - its about 15 miles between j32 and 33 so if you were a local who just wanted to go there for a meal it’d entail adding a 30 mile motorway loop to do it.

https://motorwayservices.uk/download/PennineTowerMenu.pdf

menu is perfectly retro

Not just that (astonishingly, Dad remembers this, can't remember owt useful, can recall school of architecture lectures and arguments with lecturers, on motorway service stations circa 1960's)...

Lots of people (owners, builders etc) assumed that motorway service stations would be and would continue to be destinations people wanted to visit in their own right forever really. The idea that drivers habits would change and evolve was lost on a lot of people and when the yoof of the day (ie my Dad) suggested it absolutely would - what did they know.

Driving, for the generation putting the money into the services, running them etc was a luxury and a hobby in its own right and whilst to an extent it still is, not in remotely the same way. Driving out of necessity to get from A to B was thought to only be something professional drivers were doing, and every other driver would be a middle class, middle aged family man (yup) taking a leisurely trip out with family.

In fact commuting and getting to off-motorway destinations for the pursuit of hobbies was a far greater use and the demographic of drivers altered hugely between 1960 and 1975. Those stuffy suits funding service stations could not foresee that the time where people would actively try to avoid having to stop at a services due to the huge cost and poor quality food was hurtling towards them rapidly!

Wyresdale Road... near Giggles.

Probably not what I'd now call a farm shop (visited another yesterday) but it's all local food, butchers and the cooked chicken bites are banging 👌

Thanks - for some reason never been down there.

I do ( The world without people) excellent program

I think about it all the time , I was deeply affected by the fate of the animals, the pets in particular.

No, the nearly home church is at Scorton, 2 miles before you reach Forton services northbound.

There isn’t another church along the stretch j33 to j34 but there is the Ashton Memorial, near Lancaster leisure park where Countrystyle Meats Farmshop and Kitchen is. There is also the old Moor Hospital, which is now converted into housing.