I grew up by the ‘LA of Lancashire’. It’s a wonder more people don’t visit

I’m sitting in the beautiful 16th-century Barley Mow pub in central Warrington, thinking about Socrates, Humphrey Bogart and old friends. Ghosts always come to mind here. I was born and raised five miles north of the Cheshire market town and, for all the regeneration, memories flicker around its pubs, on the high street, at Bank Quay station. Warrington might be the most bypassed town in the UK. That’s not because it is particularly “left behind”. On the contrary, it’s the north-west’s number one boom town, according to a recent Centre for Cities report. It’s just that there are lots of bypasses. When I sat down last year to write a book on British towns that tourists miss, I knew I had to begin with Warrington. This is where I set off on my first travels – walks into deepest Cheshire, train rides to London, family holidays to north Wales and the Lancashire coast. Shorts The town – like the others I wanted to celebrate – has more to it than you might first imagine. Walking in from the south, you’re reminded how ancient history made Warrington a transport hub. Romans discovered the Mersey was low enough to be forded and built a settlement at Wilderspool. A Morrisons supermarket stands on the site, but there’s a plaque marking the spot and prized artefacts in the museum. Years later, the main bridge became a bone of contention between two leading families: the Stanleys and Botelers. A plaque notes that a later Stanley defended it during the Civil Wars. When the Roundheads won at Winwick in 1648, the remnants of the Duke of Hamilton’s Cavaliers surrendered at this spot. On the other side of the bridge stands a statue of the victor, Cromwell, in front of a building called the Academy. It’s a tasteful rebuild of the original Warrington Academy, built a century after the Civil Wars, for nonconformist pupils. The town was chosen because it was well-connected. So brilliant were its teachers and so forward-looking its curriculum that Warrington became, for a time, the “Athens of the North”. Industry flourished here, at the centre of waterways, roads and, from 1831, railways. There was Sunlight soap at Lever Brothers, beer at Greenalls and Walkers, wire-making at G & J Leigh (wire became Warrington’s USP and is the nickname for the rugby league and football teams). The Patten family had interests in everything but are best remembered for making the Sankey Canal navigable. Everyone’s favourite relic of those heady days is Warrington Transporter Bridge – the “only rail transporter bridge in the world”, built in 1914-16, out of use since 1964, and now connecting nothing to nothing. The Warrington Transporter Bridge across the River Mersey (Photo: SAKhanPhotography/Getty) In the 1960s, Warrington became a new town, once again thanks to its transport links. It’s well known that the first motorway opened in Lancashire in 1958 – the Preston Bypass, now the M6. The county surveyor, James Drake, had visited Germany to study the autobahns and believed he’d seen the future. It’s less celebrated that Warrington became the place where his vision was most fully realised. I went for a long, looping “heritage” walk along the riverbank and then back to town via the Manchester Ship Canal. It was lovely and bucolic, and there were rafts of ducks having splashy fun, but I could hear motorways much of the time. The M6 passes nearby and the M62 and M56 are on either side of town. Major roads like the A59 and A56 – both Roman – and A57, an old turnpike, converge here. Paul Barker, in a survey of suburbia, wrote that “Drake gave south Lancashire a denser network of motorways than Los Angeles. Warrington exploited this.” That’s why the town is still booming today. The Manchester Ship Canal underlines Warrington (Photo: SAKhanPhotography/Getty) It’s not, though, the only reason why I was thinking about Humphrey Bogart in the old inn. Visits by Hollywood stars like him, Bob Hope, Judy Garland, James Cagney, and bandleader Glenn Miller, were almost routine at the nearby RAF Burtonwood air base, which was taken over by America’s air force from the Second World War through to its closure in 1994. GIs brought records with them, and African American funk and soul (which became known as northern soul) entered Lancashire via the base. There is an RAF Burtonwood Heritage Centre inside the Gulliver’s World theme park, just south of the M62. It’s slightly over an hour’s walk to the area where the base was located – or half an hour on the number 13 bus. When I was growing up, this was all green fields and bosky loveliness. Housing estates have sprawled, but there are still reasons to go. One is to see a new monument, the Bolt of Lightning, which pays homage to the pilots, ground crews and aircraft-makers who, among other things, helped with the Berlin Airlift. Two, to see the UK’s oldest Ikea, a symbol of Warrington’s thrusting appetite for the future. Three, to have a coffee in the wigwam-shaped Burtonwood services café on the eastbound carriageway of the M62. Two services were opened in 1974, but only this one survives. It was built by modernist architect Patrick Gwynne, with a hat-like copper roof that sticks out raffishly on the Lancashire Coastal Plain. Bands like Teardrop Explodes and Yazoo, travelling between Manchester and Liverpool, were said to stop here for tea and gammon and chips – but we never saw them when we came as kids. Burtonwood Services has a distinctive conical roof (Photo: Welcome Break) The caff has photos of David Hasselhoff, Liam Gallagher, David Cameron and footballers James Milner and Jordan Henderson posing with staff, which it displayed as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations in 2024. A ghost of a US airman is said to stalk the car park. With the traffic speeding past, day and night, there can be no better place to contemplate the Los Angeles of Lancashire. Where Tourists Seldom Tread: Postcards from Bypassed Britain by Chris Moss is published by Faber, £20