Driving Edinburgh to Hampshire - any suggestions of places to stop halfway-ish?

[Tzes]

All being well we will be having a break in Scotland in the summer, ending up in Edinburgh. We will then drive home to the Hampshire coast travelling the full length of England. Google tells me that it will be 450 miles and will take 8 hours. Given google's optimism about traffic levels I will be allowing 10ish hours

Travelling with children under 10 we're going need to stop overnight on route and I wondered if there is anywhere you would recommend to stop 4 hours or so out from Edinburgh.

Ideally somehwere with something interesting to see in the afternoon/ early evening before going for dinner and the dreaded family hotel room at 8.

Any suggestions?

Leicester National space centre? Not very scenic (it’s in a business park!) but good for the kids! Or Leeds - which is more of a half way point..

If you’re coming down via the M56, then the Trentham Estate/Gardens and monkey forest is excellent for kids www.trentham.co.uk

Chester Zoo/Cheshire Oakes /blue Aquarium thing.

Yorkshire Sculpture Park is lovely and not far off the motorway.

Are you going M6? The south side of Manchester is about 4 hours of flat out driving from Edinburgh not including breaks.
Tatton Park in Knutsford might suit? I think you can still just walk into the grounds from Knutsford, there's a big play area on The Moor and there's places like Pizza Express for tea. Just don't stay at the Premier Inn at the motorway services, it was voted worst in the country!

If you are going m6 then it's easy to take a quick detour into the Lake District. Lots of nice places to stay then as well as a day out in the lakes

@Fivemoreminutes1

If you’re coming down via the M56, then the Trentham Estate/Gardens and monkey forest is excellent for kids www.trentham.co.uk

Trentham is brilliant and there's a travelodge (or similar) right at the gates plus a handful of chain restaurants.

Thank you for all these suggestions - I will look them up. I guess we will be coming down the M6 as it looks most direct.

Will look at lake District but fear slightly that it will be congested at that time of year? And I slightly fear that we need to spend several days there to really appreciate it

Tatton Park looks great for a stop off and I believe that part of Cheshire is where all the Manchester footballers live? DS will love trying to spot the fancy cars and houses!

Tebay Services is always worth a stop and they operate the Rheged centre which is 2 minutes off the M6 at the Penrith junction. You can get to the shores of Ullswater at Pooley Bridge without too much of a detour off the motorway and my parents often stop at Lowther Castle on the way up to Edinburgh (I've never been myself!).
If you do stop in the Lakes but sleep over somewhere south then I would spend the day there and not leave until early evening (after 5pm) if it's a week a day or you'll sit in rush hour traffic all the way south of Lancaster.

right next to Leicester Space Centre there is also the very charming Abbey Pumping Station Museum

We stayed at Tebay services (it's nicer than it sounds!) when travelling from Edinburgh to Hampshire years ago - we had children under 10 with us (4 &9 I think..)

It's only 2 hrs from Lake District to Edinburgh so I would stop further south, Chester is about 4 hrs from Edinburgh so seems like a good half way stop.

We’ve done Scotland to Cornwall a few times with our boys. We left Cornwall very early in the morning last time, drove to tretham forest, walked round the money park had a play, got some food and then carried on home, had a stop at tenbay services for dinner and a run around and made it home
For bedtime. Sounds horrendous but it was okay and actually better than a night in a family room (mine get over excited and don’t sleep)
Previous year we stopped near Warrington for the night and had a day at gullivers world the next day and drove home afterwards.

I’m Struggling to remember the years before that 😊