Membury services

Membury services is a motorway service station on the M4 motorway, located on the original site of RAF Membury in the civil parish of Lambourn in the English county of Berkshire, close to the boundary with Wiltshire, 4 miles (6.4 km) west of Junction 14. It is owned by Welcome Break and is situated adjacent to the Membury Radio Mast.

Membury Services
Membury Services Location within Berkshire
Information
County	Berkshire
Road	M4
Coordinates:	51.4807°N 1.5569°W / 51.4807; -1.5569
Operator	Welcome Break
Date opened	February 1972 (partly), May 1973 (full)
Website	welcomebreak.co.uk/locations/membury/

History

The service area was built by Ross Group, after^{[clarification needed]} Leicester Forest East, with Hartshead Moor services.^[1]

Construction

The services were built by Monk. Planning consent had been given in July 1970.^[2]

Food

It was designed by Howard V Lobb, to have three restaurants:^[3]

• truckers, 80 seats
• general self-service cafeteria area, 180 seats
• grill room, with waitress service, 120 seats

Opening

The eastbound side only opened for petrol and toilets in February 1972, but there were no meals until October 1972. The westbound side opened on Thursday 15 June 1972, with a snack bar, in a portakabin.^[4] By March 1973, it was announced that the full service area would open at the end of May 1973.

On 22 December 1971, a 50-mile (80 km) stretch of the M4 was opened between Badbury, Wiltshire near Swindon, and the Holyport Interchange on the A423(M); it was opened at 11 am by Michael Heseltine, and his daughter Alexandria, at the Holyport Interchange. The M4 section was the longest stretch of motorway to be opened in England, since the M1 in 1959. The service area is on the Theale to Shefford Woodlands section, which is 16.5 miles (26.6 km); the route was announced in December 1966, but altered in November 1967 after objections.^[5] The only services on the M4 in December 1971 were at Heston and Aust; Membury opened in February 1972; more service areas had been planned, but never built. The Winnersh Interchange, with the 2.5-mile (4.0 km)A329(M), opened in early 1973.

Buildings

Shell would run the pumps.^[6]

Planned services on the M4

Other M4 service areas were planned at Warren Copse near Shurlock Row and Waltham St Lawrence (B3018), Furze Hill (B4009, Hermitage, Berkshire), and Ashes Copse near Bradfield, Berkshire; in June 1972, Berkshire County Council looked at Upper Wood Farm on Cutbush Lane in Earley, owned by the University of Reading.^[7]

Facilities

Membury is one of five services which have a Starbucks drive-thru: the others are Fleet (Northbound only) M3, Warwick (Southbound only) M40, Hartshead Moor (Eastbound only) M62 and Gordano M5.

The service station is one of fourteen for which large murals were commissioned from artist David Fisher in the 1990s, designed to reflect the local area and history.^[8]

The services were constructed along with this section of the M4 from 1969 to 1971 by Arthur Monk and Co Ltd.^{[citation needed]}

The Iron Age hillfort, Membury Camp, lies to the immediate southwest of the old airfield and the services.