London to Manchester by Chauffeur

Quick as the train from Euston is, it also amounts to two hundred miles of other people. A chauffeur rewrites that arithmetic: the car comes to your home or your office, the luggage stays precisely where you put it, and no interchange waits at either end. Where two or three travel together the cost frequently sits little above first class between them, and the journey ends at a door rather than at a taxi rank in the rain.

Out of London the route takes the M1, picks up the M6 near Rugby and passes Birmingham before the long open run through Staffordshire and Cheshire. When the Midlands are heavy the M6 Toll earns its money, and that decision belongs to your chauffeur on the day, not to somebody a week beforehand. From Knutsford onward it is a plain run in on the M56, or round on the M60, according to which side of the city you want.

Four hours in the back of a quiet saloon are four hours that remain yours. Guests take calls, get through papers properly, sleep, or watch the country change from Northamptonshire fields to the Cheshire plain. Nothing to board, no seat reservation, and no breaking off mid-sentence because somebody has sat down opposite. A confidential conversation stays that way, which a carriage full of strangers can never promise.

One stop somewhere near the halfway mark is what we usually suggest, and it can be arranged somewhere considerably better than a motorway service area should you prefer. Book the return leg at the same time or leave it open. Where the day overruns, waiting in Manchester and bringing you home that evening suits us perfectly well. All timings stay approximate, since the Midlands decide most of them.