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Stretching 107 miles from Liverpool to Hull through Manchester and Leeds, the route has become one of the country’s busiest roads, carrying thousands of commuters, holidaymakers and freight vehicles every day.

But beneath the traffic lies one of Britain’s most remarkable engineering stories. The motorway was first proposed in the 1930s as planners looked for a better route linking Lancashire and Yorkshire. Construction eventually got under way decades later, with the road opening in stages between 1971 and 1976 at a cost of around £765million in today’s money.

Its most famous section crosses the Pennines, where Junction 22 at Saddleworth Moor sits around 372 metres (1,221ft) above sea level, making it the highest point on any motorway in the UK.

Building a road through such unforgiving terrain was no easy task. Engineers blasted through huge sections of rock and created what is now Scammonden Reservoir, while also constructing bridges capable of withstanding the harsh conditions found high in the Pennines.

The area’s reputation for extreme weather was well known long before the motorway arrived. Windy Hill, one of the best-known stretches of the M62, regularly experiences strong gusts, thick fog, heavy rain, and snowfall, often within a matter of hours.

Speaking in the BBC Four documentary The Secret Life of the Motorway, the M62’s chief engineer Geoffrey Hunter explained that the original aim was to build a road that would stay open throughout the year, even during severe winter weather.

Despite those ambitions, the route has still become notorious for weather- disruption. During the Beast from the East in 2018, thousands of vehicles became stranded on the motorway as heavy snow and blizzard conditions swept across Saddleworth Moor.

One of the motorway’s most unusual sights is Stott Hall Farm, the isolated farmhouse sitting between the eastbound and westbound carriageways. For years, many believed its owners refused to sell, forcing engineers to build around it.

The real reason was rather different. Engineers discovered a geological fault beneath the property, making it simpler and safer to leave the farmhouse where it stood than demolish it.

Today, more than 50 years after it first opened, the M62 remains one of Britain’s most important roads, linking the east and west coasts while crossing some of England’s highest and most challenging landscape.