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It’s a perennial problem. You’re on a long motorway journey and suddenly the need for a massive dump takes hold. Away from the comfort of your own home, you’re understandably nervous about using a busy service station to do your business.
Luckily, here is your guide to the best UK service stations in which to have a shit:
5. Blackburn with Darwen –an opportunity to enjoy the only services in the country named after an entire unitary local authority. Unfortunately, after your vindaloo curry last night, the feeling you’re getting as you rapidly evacuate your bowels is more like Ringburn in Darwen.
4. Leicester Forest East – known as ‘LFE’ to aficionados, this service station is one of just a handful in the country offering you the chance to take a dump on one side, then cross the bridge and enjoy the facilities on the other side, a safe distance away from the baby’s arm sized, foul-smelling turd you’ve just dropped into the pan.
3. Charnock Richard – one of the most elaborate names for a service station in the country (see also MichaelWood, and Pease Pottage) it is located near to a village where a thirteenth-century landowner added his own first name to distinguish it from Heath Charnock. As you indicate to turn off the motorway, you might feel as if you are almost touching history, as well as definitely touching cloth.
2. Lymm Truck Stop – widely seen as the most workmanlike, functional services in the country, the fact that you are only really allowed to stop at these services if you have an axle weight greater than 7.5 tonnes just adds to the frisson of excitement of using the most basic of bogs here. As you lower your trousers, listen to the unmistakable sound of an orchestra of truckers in the other cubicles straining to squeeze out the contents of a week’s worth of consecutive English breakfasts and Greggs sausage rolls.
1. Tebay – perhaps the best-known service station in the country. Renowned for its artisan food and drink offerings and quiet, relaxed atmosphere, what better place could there be for you to meet your urgent need to snap one out? Enjoy the soft, muted beige colours in the toilets, and the prospect of an organic, locally sourced meat pie, before declaring that you’ve left a new lunchtime special in cubicle 1 of the gents – a large brown trout.
