London to Edinburgh; driving with detours along the M40/M6

Yikes! With this itinerary, you're proposing changing hotels almost every night, driving a couple of hours every day, and whizzing through a bunch of sights every day. This will get very tiring, very fast.

Are you locked into flying in and out of London? On such a short trip, you'll save a lot of time flying home from Edinburgh, Glasgow, or even Manchester, rather than having to get all the way back to London to make your flight.

When you say "Stratford upon Avon seems like a must" - why is that? Not a criticism, a real question. If it's just a "must" because it's famous, skip it - you don't have time to see everything on your list. If it's a must for some other reason, cut something else.

It is, as you say, ambitious.
Look up routes and travel times on the AA (British Automobile Association) website: http://www.theaa.com/route-planner/index.jsp

The Lake district stop seams pointless, you will arrive late and depart early, no time to see anything.
But, if you have the morning in Stratford-upon-Avon, the afternoon at Warwick castle, say leave earliest 3pm. The AA reckons Stratford-Upon-Avon is 362.4 km, 3 hrs 45 mins (with no stops), so you don't arrive until 7pm!
Keswick to Edinburgh is 215.3 km, 2 hrs 41 mins. Depart 9 am, arrive midday, you only have ½ day to explore Edinburgh.

I think you need more days or fewer places. Try to avoid one night stops,

I know traveling in Europe is different than in the US, but changing hotels every night is rather typical for an American roadtrip.

We are locked in to flying in and out of London -- tickets purchased, and still hoping to make those two Tottenham games.

As much as I want to see Bath, I'm wondering if we should take that out to reduce the overall distance and give more time to break up the drive past Stratford-Upon-Avon. We both love Shakespeare, which is why it seems like a must ;)

The thought to stop in the Lake District was to break up the drive. We also have friends in Durham who hoped to drive over and meet us for dinner.

Sorry, but this is ridiculous. You're just cramming stuff in to tick it off and giving yourself no time to do anything. If the Tottenham games are locked in (do you have tickets? if not they are very much the opposite of locked in given the demand for PL tickets) then I'd just spend it in the South. Save Edinburgh and the Lakes for another time, by the looks of things you're barely going to see them anyway.

I know we're only a small country, but it does take time to get between places.

akkejakke - no need to be unkind. I have been to England a few times, but I have yet to do a roadtrip. Basically, we are looking at a 3-day drive to Edinburgh, where we will spend 2 days before taking the train back to London.

I made my list of what I want to see and then realized it may not work within the time allowed - which is why I'm reaching out! I also realize we won't see anything of the Lake District with my current plan. What I'm asking is... If you made this drive in three days, where would you stop? It doesn't make sense to stay somewhere multiple nights unless we drive halfway.

Emma - thank you for your reply! That was exactly what I was looking for! I realize that while something looks good on paper, it may not work in reality (due to traffic concerns and such). I've asked my English friends but I think they were trying to be kind and not helping me be realistic.

We're coming in October and yes, both Tottenham games are at home.

In that case, I'd cut out Stonehenge and do something like this:

Thur/Fri/Sat: London
Sun: Bath
Mon: Oxford
Tue: Travel (possibly stop somewhere for an hour or two, you're better off staying on the east side of the Pennines since you're headed Edinburgh way)
Wed: Edinburgh
Thur: Edinburgh
Fri: Travel
Sat/Sun: London

I don't really see the need for a car on this trip, even including your original itinerary. Everything seems fairly accessible by train, it's a faster method of transport (though I appreciate it can be expensive) and historic towns and cars don't often mix. That's just me, though - if you want to drive then by all means.

to answer something from the original question, luggage lockers at stations. Sadly no, they were all withdrawn due to IRA bomb attacks in the 80s and things never got better for long enough to bring them back. Some stations have staffed luggage storage with scanners but are expensive.

But the tour isn't as mad as some that have been posted.

Skip Stonehenge, unless you are druids.
Sunday and Monday night, same hotel Oxford area, maybe a village west side off the A40.
Tuesday, this plan has a problem on a weekday, it will put you right in the middle of the mayhem of the M6 Birmingham area evening rush hour. The only real answer is to pay the extra and use the M6Toll (a duplicate toll road that runs from near Birmingham airport to north of Wolverhampton) https://www.m6toll.co.uk/ try for a hotel Kendal area so you aren't too late arriving.
Wednesday- at least spend the morning seeing something of the Lake District, use the A591 via Keswick to the A595 and then towards Carlisle and the A7 to Edinburgh. Don't worry about rushing to see the town , you missed something later on...
Thursday. if you must, any reason for St Andrews??
Friday. The train to London doesn't take all day. 4.5 hours is closer. Spend the morning in the old town. Edinburgh station does have a luggage store. Friday afternoon trains will need booking quickly, the bargains sell out very fast. Trains at 14:00, 14:30, 15:30....

Do you realise that the Tottenham games may change to fit the TV schedules? They maybe anytime between Friday night and Monday night. The actual day will only be confirmed a couple of weeks out.

Others have already commented on how manic your itinerary is!

Stonehenge wouldn't be on my top 100 things to see in the UK, so if you aren't interested in old stones, then yes, you should skip it. Stratford upon Avon is another place that could easily be missed IMO - tourist tacky, but worth visiting if you want to see a play at the theatre. Take a cushion, as the seats are not comfortable.

If you use Google maps for your route planning, add at least a third.

Megan,
We leave in two weeks for Bath so I have been looking at maps and planning for awhile now. Have you looked at Avebury in place of Stonehenge. it would be easier to get too on the way out of Bath to M4. You can walk among the stones and touch them. We eliminated Stonehenge almost immediately as the direction this trip is Bath, Cardiff and out toward Linmouth.

Thank you all for the continued help!

SteveB - we've decided to cut out Stratford-upon-Avon so we can spend more time driving around the Lake District. My husband is eager to see it in the fall. Hopefully this will help us miss some major traffic jams. I plan to purchase our train tickets and book our hotels prior to leaving.

Jennifer - yes, this is all just an estimate. I'm an event planner by trade so I must have a strong timeline to start with and then fluctuate with the game schedule if we must, but we would still know prior to leaving for England. Typically, by mid-August the October schedules are secure, but we are waiting a few weeks to book anything beyond our plane tickets - which puts us in the timeframe you mention.

So it looks like Tuesday will be our longest day of driving, unless I can convince my husband to take the train, but hey - apparently we're a bit crazy ;)

Oh and St. Andrews because I was a competitive golfer in school and my husband is a golfer as well.

Tuesday is not a long drive in terms of distance, you just have to plan to avoid it becoming long in time! By skipping Stratford you miss the Birmingham peak delays (just about the worst outside of London). There is still a risk of hitting heavy traffic at the Thelwall Viaduct as the Liverpool and Manchester peaks build up but this is only a few miles of problems. To see how things happen use Google Maps and plot a course from Warwick Castle to Kendal. Everyone knows this but what many don't try is setting the departure time. Click "Leave Now" and change it to "Depart At". Set departure to 2pm on your date. Google knows about planned works and past traffic flows and recalculates based on a specific departure time and your eta through each point on the journey. At 2pm the whole M6 route will be probably be blue (ie clear of problems). Click the right arrow next to 2pm and it advances in 20 minute steps. With each click areas of orange and red appear, guess what they mean! And notice how the expected journey time gets longer.

Sunset in the Kendal area will be around 6:15pm by mid October so even if you leave Warwick at 2pm and avoid the delays you won't see much that evening, but you would find the hotel before it goes dark.