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Trusthouse Forte

MSO Home - Operators - Trusthouse Forte

Forte built and operated the UK's second service area, Newport Pagnell. The original plan was for Watford Gap to be for lorries only and for Newport Pagnell to be for cars, but Blue Boar (the operator of Watford Gap) refused to build a second site and neither did they like the idea of half their customers being sent elsewhere, so it never took off.

Before motorways were built, Forte ran several hotels and cafés around the country. Their first business was a milk bar in 1935.

Forte merged with Trust House, who had been running rest areas long before motorways were heard of, to create Trust House Forte and later Trusthouse Forte. Their hotels were re-branded as Forte Posthouse. This made Forte the UK's largest service area operator until the nineties. It's difficult to tell exactly when they first gained this title. At some point during the 70s Forte re-branded their services as Motor Chef, but this wasn't much of a success so they changed back.

In 1986, Trusthouse Forte bought Happy Eater (having owned Little Chef since the late 1960s) and the four Welcome Break services off Hanson Trust. At the time Trusthouse Forte described Welcome Break as 'highly respected', so they decided to re-brand all their motorway services as Welcome Break rather than do it the other way round.

In 1995, Granada bought Trusthouse Forte for £3.9billion. By then, Granada had grown so much that they were forced to sell off Welcome Break, who were picked up by Investcorp. The remaining Trusthouse Forte businesses were changed to become Forte.

When Compass and Granada split up (Compass took Granada's hospitality services and Granada kept their media), Forte was handed back to Charles Forte's son Sir Rocco Forte.

More information on Welcome Break can be found on the Welcome Break page.

Facilities

Trusthouse Forte's facilities included:

General: Pay Phones
Food/Drink: Silver Service Restaurant
Shopping: unknown
Fuel: Customers often had a choice of companies
Motel: Forte Hotel (pre c1975), Forte Posthouse (post c1975)

Photos

Click on a photo to view the full size. If you have a photo, why not upload it? It's never too late to get your name in the limelight.

	In the 60s Forte celebrated Britain's new-found love of motorways and service stations by, along with the other operators, selling postcards to advertise them. This one shows the front of Woodall northbound.
	Another one, dated either 1960 or 1961, this time showing Newport Pagnell. The photo in the top-right is particularly special because thanks to a series of widening works the road looks nothing like that today. Thank God we don't refer to it as the 'M.1.' any more! Note the presence of Blue Star - quite what they were doing there I don't know.
	The same story, this time at Keele.
	Here's another one, with the picture on the left showing the front of the northbound services. The idea of being greeted at the door may seem like a novelty today, but it was the standard back then, which shows not only how exciting motorway services were but how quiet they must have been.