An exciting new project investigating what it means to be Cumbrian.

Programme 4: M6
Producer: Steve Urquhart
Listen to the programme online »

For many people, driving through Cumbria on the M6 is a real treat. The Lune Valley, the Pennines, and miles of scenic agricultural land all combine to create one of the most beautiful stretches of motorway in the country. Although it’s less than forty years old, it’s now hard to imagine life without it.

Many people can remember life before the M6. John Hurst grew up at Skirsgill, Penrith; as a child he would play on the site of what became Junction 40. He went on to edit the "Cumberland and Westmorland Herald", and he recalls Penrith BEFORE the motorway…

Building work at Junc. 40

John Hurst recalls life in Penrith town centre before the motorway

Add your memories of the M6’s construction through Cumbria by e-mailing us at cumbria@bbc.co.uk

The road was built in different stages, beginning with the seven-mile Penrith bypass which opened in 1968.

Opening booklets

This was followed a year later by the three-mile stretch immediately south, from Hackthorpe to Thrimby. It wasn’t until 1970 that John Peyton, the Minister of Transport, cut the ribbon for the longest section – which ran from Lancaster, right through Westmorland, over Shap and back down towards Penrith.

Facts and figures - Cost of each section
Section		Length		Opened		Cost millions
Carlisle bypass (Junction 44-42)		7 miles		Dec. 1970		£7
Carlisle – Penrith (42-41)		13 miles		July 1971		£6.9
Penrith bypass		7 miles		Nov. 1968		£7.7
Hackthorpe – Thrimby		3 miles		Sept. 1969		£1.4
Thrimby to Tebay		9 miles		Oct. 1970		£7.9
Tebay to Killington		9 miles		Oct. 1970		£11.7
Killington to Farleton		8 miles		Oct. 1970		£5.4
Farleton to Carnforth		8 miles		Oct. 1970		£4.5

Jim Banks, chief engineer at Shap, describes why the motorway "splits" in certain places:

Jim Banks

Jim Banks describes why the motorway "splits" in certain places.

At Tebay, above the West Coast Main Railway line, you might have noticed a heart-shaped wood (at least that’s how it’s best known these days).

Heart Wood

There are lots of tales about its origins: some say it was planted as a memorial to a young soldier killed in the first world war, others say it was the farmer’s way of expressing his love for his wife. So is there any truth in these stories?

The wood belongs to Hilary Wilson, at High Carlingill Farm.

Hilary Wilson

Hilary Wilson tells the REAL story of the heart-shaped wood

The new motorway affected many local people. For example, after seven years of planning, the final route chosen at Lowther (near Penrith) meant Jean Hector and her family were forced to move house.

Jean Hector

Jean Hector describes her feelings about having to move house.

Years of planning and construction finally came to an end on July 1st, 1971, when the last section of our motorway was opened. The total cost of the project, from Junction 36 to Junction 44, was over £50 million.

Thirty years on, the Highways Agency maintains the motorway network on a daily basis. During the course of a four-year contract, the Agency carries out eighty-four detailed inspections of the motorway. Bob Baldwin, area manager for the Cumbrian stretch of the M6, says one of his main concerns is actually the LACK of traffic!

Bob Baldwin

Bob Baldwin sets out his priorities for the M6.

Were you involved in the construction of the M6 through Cumbria? Were you affected in any way by the new motorway? Do you regularly use the road? Click here to add your stories.

MESSAGE BOARD:

I have just read your page on the M6 motorway and its construction. My father lived at Tebay and worked on the lune gorge stretch and tells us stories about it to this day.We have just bought my Father two pictures - on of the Lune Gorge before the motorway and one just after is was completed. Whilst on one of his memory lane talks he said that one of the engineers had filmed the consturction of the Lune Gorge stretch - is this something you have heard of and if so do you know where I would be able to get a copy of it?
Sara Robertson
(If you can help, please email: cumbria@bbc.co.uk)

I started work on the M6 in 1964 when Scott Wilson Kirkpatrick & Partners arrived in Kendal to start the ground investigation.I was employed as a soils technician and initially worked in the basement of the Bridge Hotel in Stramongate. We eventually moved to our headquarters at Shaw End, Patton,a beautiful mansion and grounds complete with croquet lawn.

Our lab was a prefabricated hut alongside the house and was the scene of great activity as we tested the rocks and soils of Westmorland brought in from trial pits and boreholes along the proposed route.

In 1966 we collated the results of this work and the huge reports were presented to the Ministry of Transport to peruse and then select the contractors to carry out the construction.The contracts were let and the work began.

I was assigned to the site office at Lowgill and later to Old Hutton, my duties varied from testing materials and keeping weather records to experimental work on the layers of the carriageway as they were laid.

It was an exciting time,we worked hard and lots of friendships were forged. There is a Motorway Archive in process of collecting data and photos etc to make sure there is a record for future historians and researchers.I am allowing my memorabilia to be used.

It is 35 years since M6 was opened,who knows it may soon be regarded as a site of special scientific interest or a historical monument!
Enid Halliday

I remember the M6 very well, we always had to stop the school bus so they could blast the rocks to make way for the road, was good because we were then late for school!
Eileen Ball

During a filing clean out, this 35-year old memory jumped out at me. It shows Lune's Bridge, Tebay, and the M6 motorway under construction. My (late) parents sent this photo to me in 1969. It is more fitting in your records than to be lost in mine. Wilf Robinson, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

My grandfather, Jim Davidson, who was born at the beginning of the 20th century loved to tell stories about everything old and used to tell me about the heart shaped wood. My grandfather was a stone mason working for the county council and travelled all around the district before becoming a farmer.

I believe that the story he used to tell me was true and had been handed down over several generations. It's a very sad Romeo and Juliet tale.

Apparently there were two farming families in the valley who had an ancient feud. One family had a daughter and the other a son who, of course, fell in love. When the respective families found out about the love affair there was a huge scene and the pair were told they would never be allowed to marry.

So the fated lovers met secretly one last time. They climbed the fell where the wood is (though there wasn't a wood then) and he killed her and then killed himself.

Both families were so distraught at the tragedy they had caused that they planted the heart shaped wood at the place where the pair had committed suicide.

This may all sound far fetched, but I'm pretty sure there's more than a grain of truth in it. My grandfather used to like to tell us about people and places he had known, or stories he had been told, but few were as dramatic as this one. As far as I've been able to check, all the stories he ever told me were true, so I have no reason to doubt this one.
Dawn Robertson - Kirkby Stephen

My wife and I had Sedbergh Motor Co Ltd at that time that it was built and were involved as suppliers of light vehicle servicing and Calor Gas to the depot at Lowgill.
When the Motorway opened we recovered the first crash about an hour and three quarters after the official opening, where a Viva left the Northbound and ended up on the Southbound hard shoulder having been on it’s roof as it crossed the central reservation.
We have numerous memories of our work involving the M6, mostly regarding obtaining payment for our services. One fact that became very clear early on was that we could not run a business on promises that payment would be made later if we repaired their vehicle and let them go.
Offers of violence were not unusual and a well-known professional wrestler threatened to break me in half but I managed to get away and hide, he even went to the police station for my home address.
A professional Boxer who had run out of petrol in his Roll Royce picked me up off the ground and was only stopped by his manager who frantically made the boxer understand that the call out fee that I was demanding was peanuts compared with the cost of hitting me.
John A. Douglass - Sedburgh

"The motorway went through the middle of our land. We had a fencing depot at the farm and a few caravans belonging to workers parked in the orchard. I used to get some groceries for some of them at Endmoor Co-Op when I took my children to school. My husband and brother-in-law also did some work during the building. The A6070 used to be very congested as well as the A6 before the M6. It still is sometimes if the M6 is closed for any reason."
Mrs B. Prickett, Farleton, near Carnforth, Lancs.

"From the end of World War Two, until the late 1970s, I was living at Tebay. I was the owner of the "Lunesdale Café" and provided food for the lads on this stretch, from start to finish."
G. T. Morgan, Endmoor, Kendal.

"I worked in Lancaster for 8 years from 1958 to 1966 and, during the construction of the M6 from Carnforth to Penrith bypass, I used to often chat to an Irishman called Vallely who was one of the engineers. On the weekend after it opened I drove on the M6 to Penrith. No-one cannot be amazed at the construction through the Lune Valley, and past Tebay. One thing that stuck in my mind was the fact, despite some of the rock faces having been blasted on the western side of the road, that various grasses were already growing in crevices on the rock faces. I therefore asked my friendly engineer how this was achieved. He told me – farmers take note – that various seeds were germinated in huge tanks and at the right moment the sludge was sprayed on all the rock faces, hence some instant greenery!"
Vic Clarke, Ulverston.

Add your thoughts about the M6 by sending them to us at cumbria@bbc.co.uk