Essington services

The 1970 OS Quarter Inch map showed the services as being under construction. In reality, Hilton Park to the north was under construction at this time.

Essington Services was an early proposal for a service area on the M6 on the edge of the West Midlands conurbation near Wolverhampton. It was conceived while the Midland Links Motorways were in the planning stage and was one of three that were intended to serve the motorways entering the conurbation, the other two being Frankley Services and Corley Services which were both subsequently built.

Layout of the slip roads

The site at Essington was still the preferred location in 1961 even though there were doubts about the scenic qualities of the area including nearby collieries, disused mine workings and slag heaps together with the need to construct an additional bridge over the M6 to serve the access road.

Another potential site for a service area was found a couple of miles to the north at Hilton Park. This site was surrounded by woodland and had the advantage of a local road passing nearby to provide the access road. It was this site that was developed.