Guide to Winchester services

A service area with a history of operators, with three different operators currently providing a small range of catering and shopping facilities.

Facilities

Catering: on both sides: Burger King, Costa Coffee, Greggs, Costa Express, f'real Milkshakes, Krispy Kreme, Tango Ice Blast
and southbound only: Pret A Manger, West Cornwall Pasty Co. Shops: M&S Simply Food, WHSmith Amenities: on both sides: Full Hou$e, Showers
plus northbound only: Changing Places
and southbound only: Days Inn Outdoor Space: on both sides: Children's Play Area
plus northbound only: Large grass area to the right of building
and southbound only: Small grass areas around building Charging Points: GRIDSERVE Electric Highway HPC 120kW CCS, 50kW CHAdeMO & 22kW Type 2 Forecourt: BP, Shop, Wild Bean Café, Free Cash Machine

Parking Prices

First 2 hours free for all vehicles, after which cars must pay £15 and HGVs, caravans and motorhomes £29. HGVs can pay £32 to include a £10 food voucher.

Prices are paid in the shop or by using JustPark. The location code is 625168 (northbound) and 625169 (southbound).

HGVs can also pay by using SNAP. The location code is 13489 (northbound) and 18787 (southbound).

The fees are strictly enforced by GroupNexus.

This information is provided to us by third parties. You should always check with staff on site.

Contact Details

Trivia and History

Winchester's location has been slated because not only is it quite a way from the city of Winchester, but it's located between where a substantial amount of traffic leaves for the A303 at J8 and a substantial amount of traffic joins from the A34 at J9. Several service areas had previously been considered around J7, but these were ruled out as the junctions here are close together and busy, so Winchester was seen as a better site. Many of the service areas planned to the north of here pre-dated this part of the M3 being opened. The side effect of this positioning is that the service area is much calmer than many others.

One odd curiosity is the repeated advance signs for the service area that are on the motorway, for no apparent reason. The northbound signs all have a covered-up hotel symbol, which was most likely a mistake.

Jeff Stelling revealed that he did most of his research for that day's Sports Saturday at the northbound service area, as that was where he could get some peace. This small piece of trivia has gone on to become Hampshire folklore.

Roadchef Development

The service area was built as a joint partnership between Extra and Roadchef, by contractors P.J. Carey of Wembley. The original plan began in 1995 and was credited to Extra and Texaco; it was approved in 1999 and, after several delays, opened in 2001.

Both service areas were mainly operated by Roadchef. They opened with parking capacity for 150 cars, 14 HGVs, 10 coaches and a dedicated area for caravans. The northbound side included a 232-seat restaurant, a 36-seat Costa coffee shop, Wimpy fast food unit and a reStore shop whilst the southbound side, which was considerably larger, included a 333-seat restaurant, a 52-seat Costa coffee shop, Dr Beak's Chicken and Wimpy fast food units and Fone Bitz and reStore shops.

The restaurant was branded On Route. This was a new brand developed by Lucid and Coverpoint, and was a trial of a new concept that was expected to be rolled out nationwide. It was slightly different to the onRoute that was eventually used; it had orange colours. There was a focus on takeaway hot snacks, and creating a more spacious environment.

Both sides included a Texaco filling station, operated by Swayfields under their Gold Star brand. The car park was broken up by trees planted in gravel, instead of the usual shrubbery, presumably because of a new awareness of rodent activity.

The service area was built with access to Chillandham Lane. The northbound access was a track that was signed as a 'fire path'; it soon became so overgrown that it's probably closer to being a fire risk, and it's now both padlocked and almost impossible to find. The southbound access lasted a little longer, but has also been closed off.

Space was left for a hotel to be built on the northbound side, but this was never used. The southbound hotel opened with the service area as a 40-bed Travel Inn.

Moto Era

On 19 November 2008 Roadchef sold their part to Moto for £9.5 million, as they wanted to channel more money into their existing sites, and until now Moto didn't have a service station in this area. Keen spotters will identify much evidence of Roadchef corporate branding, especially in the car park.

The Travel Inn wasn't affected by the sale, however it was taken on by Welcome Break in 2010, who operate it as a Days Inn. The filling stations weren't affected by the sale, but have since been branded Shell and BP.

A West Cornwall Pasty Company opened inside the southbound building. It was one of the first times this takeaway unit has opened inside a Moto building.

Moto changed the restaurants to their EDC brand name, however the northbound restaurant was soon replaced with an M&S Simply Food store, with southbound later following.

The northbound Costa store was relocated to a kiosk in the seating area in 2019, making way for the Greggs unit. The southbound Costa was also relocated to the seating area in 2020, but its former unit remained unused until April 2024 when Moto opened a Greggs store here.

Moto added a Changing Places facility to the northbound amenity building in a pre-fabricated extension in early 2023. The site also became an EV charging hub in 2024 with three new GRIDSERVE charging points installed on each side. Each site was set to gain twelve new GRIDSERVE and twelve new Tesla Superchargers on each side, but power constraints mean this isn't currently possible. A Pret A Manger store also later opened on the southbound side on 15 August 2024.

Alternatives

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