January 2024
The Visit
Following my successful visit to Forton Services back in November, I felt the time had come to have another crack at the beauty that is the Hilton Park Tower.
Just as I had been doing with Forton, every time I passed the services I would pull in for a quick look at the access point and hope for the best. Finally, this paid off on a nighttime visit with @stranton and @coolboyslim. Once we found ourselves in the tower, it quickly became apparent that we needed to return in the daylight so we could properly capture and explore this vast space. We had a quick wander round taking a few phone shots and planned a return for the following morning. After a near sleepless night for myself, me and @stranton made the journey back in the early hours of the morning, arriving to a virtually deserted services. We made our way back up into the tower just as we had done the previous night.
Once in, we spent a good hour wandering around and knowing how rare of an opportunity this was, we made sure that we’d covered every single piece of the tower. At one point we managed to squeeze ourselves through a small section of missing plasterboard which leads to a long sealed-off staircase (Photo 3) the bottom of which sits behind a wall to the left of the passenger lifts. Once we’d finished, we quickly made our way back down, doing our best not to get seen on the decent, and as we were here we took the opportunity to explore some of the staff only sections of the building as well as the Southbound restaurant.
[1] - The Tower and bridge seen from the roof of the Southbound services.
The History
The contract for Hilton Park was opened to tender by the UK government at the end of 1963, with Regent Oil, Blue Boar, Mecca Leisure and Top Rank all submitting bids for the site. (Forte, Blue Star and Granada were forbidden to tender as they owned neighbouring service areas).
Following this, the bids from Regent Oil and Blue Boar were deemed to be unfeasible, so only Mecca Leisure and Top Rank's proposals were taken seriously. Although Rank's was seen as being very flexible, the offer was marginally poorer than Mecca’s. Unbelievably, it was the fact that Mecca were already building a service station which caused them not to get this contract, despite Rank already owning two of the four existing services on the M6 and despite Rank's inferior offer.
Hilton Park services were constructed at a cost of £1 million and takes its name from the nearby stately home of the same name, the land which the services were constructed on. It was originally planned to open the services in 1967, but it later transpired that the motorway south of the services wouldn’t be completed for another three years. After construction was completed, the whole site was fenced off and kept closed until 1970. This prevented the facility from running a loss during the quiet period, although Top Rank were frustrated and eager to get going as soon as possible. The Ministry of Transport had suggested just the petrol stations could be opened, but this idea was declined by Top Rank, who believed that they still wouldn’t generate enough income to cover the running costs.
Each side of Hilton Park has a distinctive tower-shape. At the point of opening, both towers held restaurants; the northbound (the feature of this report) offered a panoramic view enhanced by tiered seating for up to 380 diners. The staircase for the northbound tower is still used to access the pedestrian bridge, but the section between the first floor and the tower cannot normally be reached by members of the public (Obviously, this didn’t apply to us WINK). In the main restaurant, a small buffet table was located alongside the window, accompanied by a sweet trolley. The walls were decorated with paintings by a local artist which could also be purchased upon request. After opening, it very quickly became apparent that the tower restaurant was unpopular with motorists. This is likely because it was hard to access and because of the lack of height, it didn’t really provide any outstanding views.
As early as 1971 the restaurant had moved down from the tower to a former patio area on the ground floor. The tower was shortly repurposed as a truckers cafe and canteen area for services staff, some signs of its former use as a canteen can still be seen in parts of the tower. The restaurant and viewing area is now closed off and partially stripped with only a few original fittings remaining. If this story sounds familiar, it's because Rank did it again on a much larger scale at Forton Services which can be seen in my earlier report.
[2] - The Second Floor Landing
[3] - One of the two sets of stairs from the landing to the tower.
[4] - Restaurant seating area.
[5] - Restaurant seating area.
[6] - Compulsory chair shot.
[7] - Gallery Area.
[8] - Viewing Area.
[9] - The two original OTIS goods lifts.
[10] - Fire exit doors.
[11] - Fire escape staircase.
[12] Forgotten Receipt / [13] A very sad looking comms room.
Cheers for looking
Fujifilm X-T2, 10-24mm
Fujifilm X-T2, 10-24mm
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