When the M6 was built through their family farm in Westmorland, John and Barbara Dunning turned it to their advantage, opening the first family-owned motorway services station, in 1972. Tebay Services Farmshop and Kitchen | M6 Cumbria
Tebay Services isn’t just a fuel stop, it now encompasses a farm shop featuring more than seventy producers from within a thirty mile radius. There’s a butchery, barbecue shed, two kitchens and a hotel. This motorway services area is unique, not just because it is family-owned and rears many of the animals which its customers eat. It has to be the only motorway services area with its own duckpond !
Tebay Services has been so successful, that the Dunning family opened Gloucester Services (M5 btwn junctions 12 and 11A) in 2014 Gloucester Services Farmshop & Kitchen in partnership with Gloucester Community Trust.
The family announced in August 2021, that they are partnering with the Tatton Estate, to build new motorway services on the M56, between junctions 7 and 8. Tebay Services operator to open new stop on M56 at Tatton | Warrington Guardian
The Guardian has written about Tebay Services:
Glad to be of service | Food | The Guardian
Skip the services: 20 stopovers off British motorways and A roads | Food and drink | The Guardian
Why Tebay is ‘the motorway service station from heaven’ | Lake District holidays | The Guardian
Visit Cumbria Tebay Services on the M6 | Visit Cumbria, The Lake District |
Channel 4 made a documentary about Tebay Services, entitled A Lake District Farm Shop which can be watched via 4oD
A Lake District Farm Shop – On Demand – All 4 (channel4.com)
UPDATE 06/04/22 Today, HRH The Prince of Wales visited Tebay Services on its 50th anniversary and unveiled a plaque. A new series of the Channel 4 documentary A Lake District Farmshop, begins on 09/04/22
Prince Charles tours Eden in royal visit today – Cumberland and Westmorland Herald (cwherald.com)