Exterior of the colossal amenity building at Cobham. This masterpiece first opened in 2012 by Extra and has since been crowned busiest motorway services in England. Opening Cobham and bringing it to fruition was a significant challenge for Extra, who in 2010, went in administration. In addition to this, Elmbridge Borough Council (council area for the Cobham site) suggested Extra should built their services in Buckinghamshire further up the M25. Cobham mimics its building design from Beaconsfield, which opened 3 years earlier. It’s interesting to note that Extra built their services in regional batches. An example would be Cambridge, Peterborough and Baldock which are all 2000-01 builds in the same area and now Cobham and Beaconsfield. Cobham is a huge building which has had two restaurant extensions. It’s filled with facilities, but its large size means it can cope with this and the large influx of customers the amenity building receives on a daily basis. Cobham is easily viewed from the M25 Westbound. Cobham, being 11 years old now, is still a clean, pleasant place for M25 traffic. Cobham plugged a huge gap in motorway services on the M25 as before it was built, there was a 66 mile distance between Clacket Lane and South Mimms. The glass frontages at Cobham make the building seem more modern as large glass walls were only really used at services since the late 1990s. Cobham was fairly busy today as it was two days before Xmas, however, Cobham permanently being a busy place means you don’t notice large crowds of customers as much. Cobham’s definitely one of my personal favourites to visit!

Photo taken on 23/12/2023 by Tom Moon.

Assigned to galleries: Cobham, M25, Extra