In Depth History
We get stuck in and take an in depth look into the parks history. From Tussauds take over, to Colossus, it's all here.
Thorpe Park, unlike its sister parks Chessington and Alton Towers, is a very young and modern site. Back in the 1970’s Thorpe Park was no island; it was an active gravel site under the command of RMC (Ready Mix Concrete). Due to change in business plans, RMC decided to give up with the quarry and go into the leisure business; finally in 1971 the site was granted planning permission to be transformed into a 500 acre leisure park. RMC started to infill the land but halfway through the process, they realised that it would take upwards of 10 years to infill and it would be far more cost and time effective to simple flood the remaining pits – and thus the Thorpe Park Island was born. Initially, when Lord Mountbatten first opened the park in 1979, Thorpe Park only had the Mountbatten Pavilion (the Dome/ Port Atlantis) and model world; the whole area was aimed to be an exhibition area with many shows with vintage aeroplanes and models of famous land marks. Over time the park had many additions, such as the Sunken Garden, Thorpe Park farm and water bus trips. RMC then took a turn which changed the history of the park, which was to start installing rides, some of the first being Thunder River, Space Station Zero, Magic Mill, Phantom Phantasia and the 630 seat Palladium Theatre.
By 1989 the park had really started to develop with a whole new area of Canada Creek, featuring Loggers Leap, Rocky Express and Trappers Trail. 1990 saw a re-theme of Space Station zero, which was replaced out side causing model world to be split into two sections; it was re-themed into the flying fish which is still popular to this day – despite being moved again. Between then and 1995, the park started to develop its themes, with the addition of fantasy reef, ranger county (with new park rangers) and many other children orientated rides and the re- theme of Phantom Phantasia to Wicked Witches Haunt and the Magic Mill to Mr Rabbits Tropical Travels - all sparking an award to the park for being the most family orientated park in the UK. 1995 also saw work beginning on Project X, as RMC progressed onto the most ambitious and expensive developments they had ever done. X:/ No Way Out, opened in 1996 and was the worlds first pitch black, backwards rollercoaster in the world – or as the park liked to call it ‘blackwards’. Although many don’t see the coaster as the biggest of successes, at the time it pulled in a whole new audience, which later lead to the park being bought off of RMC by Pearsons, the owners of Tussauds at the time, whose other attractions Alton Towers and Chessington had been huge.
The Tussauds ownership was the true turning point of the park, from what was very much a child orientated, Water Park into a mainstream thrill park of today. They began by installing Pirates 4-D into the palladium; a 3-D pirate movie with special interactive effects which scares views witless at times. The attraction was very well received due to the light hearted nature and the well themed atmosphere. However the real changes to the park began when applications for a new water ride was submitted – later to be known as Tidal Wave, Europe’s Highest Water Ride. Although that title was short lived, Tidal Wave was a massive success and the detail of themeing and WWTP radio in a brand new area called Amity Cove was outstanding – showing Tussauds living up to their other legendary developments like Nemesis.
During the 2000 season, a major fire broke out in the park causing tremendous damage to the Wicked Witches Haunt and the inside section of Tropical Travels. The fire was put out quickly with no people being injured, but the extent of the damage of the building meant that Wicked Witches Haunt had to be demolished as did the Tropical Travels tunnel which was connected to the building. Tropical Travels later became operational – but without the indoor section – and a travelling enterprise was brought into the park as a ‘quick fix’, this turned out to be the park’s first upside down ride.
In 2001, we saw the first glimpse of Thorpe Parks new direction with the addition of Detonator, a Fabbri Drop Tower; Vortex, a KMG Afterburner and the enterprise that was brought in at the end of 2000, had been re-themed and renamed as Zodiac. The rides went through a lot of downtime, leading to many agree customers and the park featuring on Watchdog.
2002 was another huge year for Thorpe Park, when they opened their new rollercoaster, Colossus. This was the parks first looping rollercoaster, but they didn’t start off with one or two – they gave us the worlds first 10 looping rollercoaster. 2002 was also the parks first year of Fright Nights, with new special attractions called ‘The Freezer’ and the ‘3-D Freakshow’, but they found it hard to cope with the huge gate figures for that year due to its new found fame in the theme park world and introduced another new coaster Nemesis Inferno in 2003. The name gives it away, but it was the same ride make as the legendary Nemesis, B&M and included a new threat to the nemesis brand of a very active volcano in the depths of Calypso Quay. With Nemesis Inferno, the park decided to boost their ride numbers and built two smaller support rides in Lost City to cope with the amount of guests. These were Quantum, a Fabbri magic carpet and Eclipse, an observation wheel.
2004 we saw the transfer of Samurai from Chessington to Thorpe. Chessington has been restricted on planning permission for any major rollercoasters. So Thorpe Park took on the role as the Thrill park as they did not have such restraining planning restrictions. In 2005 we also got two new rides, Slammer and Rush; both from the American company S&S Power, the rides are an interesting design using air to manoeuvre them. They would be more popular but the ride reliability has been very poor with most days Rush being only one swing, and Slammer featuring on the news more than once because of ‘stranded passengers’. The incidents were not serious. Come fright nights we also saw the re-theme of 3-D Freakshow to Hellgate, which went down very well (or rather didn’t) with the public, and the rename and reversal of the Freezer to the Asylum.
2006 was the year of Stealth. Coming in at an outstanding £12 million, stealth was Thorpe Park’s most expensive and ambitious project to date; an Intamin Launch Coaster. The ride barely lasts for more than 15 seconds, and catapults riders 80mph down a launch track and up a 205ft tower. It was installed in Amity Cove and is based on a 1950’s American race track; we also received a live DJ to stealth who posed at WWTP stars and played us the best of the 50’s throughout the day. In June the ride suffered a major incident, resulting in it being closed for about a month and needed sections of the launch track replaced. Sadly due to the installation of Stealth, we had to loose the Flying Fish. Fright nights also saw a brand new maze to add to the line up, called se7en which was an awesomely scary success.
Today in 2007 we have seen the first significant revamp to X:/ No Way Out since it has been built, with new features, lighting and a pre- ride video. The Flying Fish also made a fresh return with an orange make over and an Amity Cove ‘surfer’ theme.
