A49 at Dones Green
(also accessible to traffic on the A533)
Signposted from the road.
WA4 4EZ
map and directions
Single site located between junctions on one side of the road.
A small petrol station and truckstop by the Dones Green Crossroads, which recently transferred to the Welcome Break estate.
Facilities
Catering: Lets Eat Café Amenities: Happy Guests Lodge Outdoor Space: No grass space; public footpath connections Forecourt: Applegreen, Londis, Costa Coffee, Greggs, Costa Express, f'real Milkshakes, Jolly Rancher Slush, Free Cash Machine
Parking Prices
Overnight parking is available next to Lets Eat Café for £18 per night.
Prices are paid in the café, and can be paid with GBP, EUR, fuel cards or SNAP.
This information is provided to us by third parties. You should always check with staff on site.
Contact Details
🏢 Address:
Tarporley Road
Lower Whitley
Warrington
Cheshire
WA4 4EZ
Trivia and History
The service station started out as a 1950s garage called Tall Trees, in the corner of the crossroads at Dones Green. A transport depot opened up behind it, which became a full truckstop with its own restaurant.
In around 1975, a house servicing that garage was extended to become the Lower Whitley branch of Little Chef. The building had a forecourt sales shop at one side, a restaurant at the other and accommodation upstairs.
A hotel was built in 1989 and opened under the name 'Tall Trees Lodge', next to and accessed via the forecourt. This went onto become Happy Guests Lodge in the early 2010s.
The Little Chef closed in 2005, and became an extended forecourt sales shop. At this point, the direct access between the forecourt and hotel was removed and both were now directly accessed from the A49.
Forecourt Development
The forecourt has previously been branded Texaco, and BP since the late 1980s. The forecourt shop was previously an 'eXpress' store throughout the 2000s and became Mace in the early 2010s.
During the summer of 2016, the site was acquired by Applegreen who rebranded the site to their 'Low fuel prices, always' branding. They called it 'Whitley service station'. The fact Applegreen operates their own food concessions means there is no longer any formal relationship between the forecourt, which is the official service area, and the hotel and truckstop next door.
Applegreen redeveloped the forecourt in late 2018, demolishing the former restaurant and sales building and reopening in summer 2019 with a new, larger sales building offering Costa and Greggs concessions inside.
Meanwhile, they purchased a significant stake of Welcome Break. One of the trade-offs of the purchase was that Whitley would eventually be re-branded Welcome Break, and adjusted to reflect the rest of their estate. While there has been little public evidence of any action, in October 2021 Whitley was added to Welcome Break's website as one of their locations.
The sales building later gained Londis branding in Autumn 2023, following a new partnership between Booker and Welcome Break.
Alternatives
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| Lymm (M56 east, 7 miles) | Services on the A49 | Whitchurch (26 miles) |