Hey all, can anyone help.I’m looking for the exact locations of any of the following cafes on the old A74
Coatsgate (found)
Red Moss (found)
Kirtlebridge (found)
Beattock (found)
Crawford (found)
Moss cafe (found)
Elvanfoot (found)
DAK (meaning?) believed to have been in the Lesmahagow area.
Thanks in advance
The Moss cafe used to be situated on the southbound side of what was known as the Cumberland gap at Todhills. I think it was classed as the A74 then. I cannot recall the exact date it was demolished, sometime in the eighties when the motorway was completed. It is now the location of Todhills rest area on both carriageways, in fact the northbound comes complete with its own DVSA checksite.
I can recall the Kirtle Kettle cafe, but cannot recall the exact location
T.B
Great thanks, I know the Todhills site
Elvanfoot cafe was just before where J14 is now.
If you look across the s/b carriageway whilst travelling n/b, you will see part of the old A74, now a B road.
Before that junction you will see a bit of a cordoned off yard with a couple of trailers parked up…that is a good guide to the old location.
That was where we used to park when going s/b and walk across the A74 carriageways to the cafe on opposite side…I reckon the old cafe site is actually on the n/b lanes now.
There was also a BP fuel station there.
One of my regular stops in the old days,.as was the Kirtle Cafe, but not sure where that exact location, was in relationship to ‘new’ M74.
The services at Carlisle where the Moss Cafe used to be,… there is still a lot of waste ground beside it, next to the pump forecourt.
I often wonder why they don’t capitalise on it and make the land into an overnight truck park.
Is there not a big overnight truckstop at the next junction opposite the ASDA?
Yep,…also at J42 Golden Fleece.
But you can never get enough overnight truck parks.
Cheers Robroy, I must have passed this place but I just can’t remember any more.
Johnstonebridge services on the A74 northbound in the early 90’s. Pic courtesy of Scottish Roads Archive.
Close up shot
That bottom picture…
The red building was a Little Chef (right of picture) which is closed down, but still stands today on the B road which was part of the old A74.
You go under the present M74 to get to it from the msa.
There was the Rosebank cafe at Gretna ? last time I was there was in 1967 not long before I finished on the Octopus & trailer at T.Brady & Sons Ltd of Barrow. I remember because it was winter time and we stopped for our evening meal as we were on flyer loaded out of Vickers yard in Barrow for the Faslane submarine base on the Clyde.
The load was in wooden crates two on the Octopus and one on the trailer all secret gear Eric reckoned. Now Faslane was a dangerous place there was Yanks wandering around tooled up to the eyeballs ! Happy days !
Are these the Kirtlebridge services you were asking about? This photo was taken from Kirtlebridge looking north. Pic courtesy of Scottish Roads Archive.
Yep that looks like the old Kirtle Cafe to me.
Thats a particularly interesting shot. Shows that the modern B7076 was not the original A74 at that point. If you draw a straight line from the bridge in the far background to the slip road by the farm in the foreground as this shot suggests then the old cafe is somewhere under the motorway.
