List of theme and safari parks in the UK

List of theme and safari parks in the United Kingdom

Alton Towers : The latest attraction at Alton Towers is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: The Ride which is based on a Roald Dahl book of the name. The ride is located in the Cred Street area of the park and opened on April 1, 2006. Alton Towers was opened as a theme park in 1980. It was purchased by The Tussauds Group in 1990. In 2005 it was bought when the DIC investment group purchased The Tussauds Group. Today it is notable for its extreme rides, including Nemesis, a roller coaster in which people hang with their legs dangling down, and Oblivion, the world's first vertical drop roller coaster. The oldest rollercoaster at the site is Corkscrew built in 1980, a ride with two inversions which many riders find uncomfortable due to its rough track. Billed as the first of its kind, Air is a flying roller coaster, unusual in that riders find themselves suspended horizontally facing down, as though flying. Inside the towers is the ride Hex, a surreal attraction which is based on a local legend about a chained oak. It is one of Staffordshire’s great legends.

http://www.altontowers.com

The park is split into several themed areas.

Barry Island Pleasure Park :

Barry Island Pleasure Park is an amusement park situated on Barry Island in the Vale of Glamorgan, about 10 miles south of the capital city Cardiff, South Wales, UK.

The Pleasure park is surrounded by many shops, bars and restaurants. The Pleasure Park was once famous for its Scenic Railway which dominated half of the site in the early 1900s this was damaged by strong winds in 1973 some of the materials were used to create the Log flume[1], which still remains today as one of the parks most popular attractions.

http://barryisland.com/

Blackpool Pleasure Beach

Blackpool Pleasure Beach is an amusement park in the Blackpool, Lancashire, England. founded in 1896 by Alderman William George Bean, who said his intent was to create "...an American Style Amusement Park, the fundamental principle of which is to make adults feel like children again and to inspire gaiety of a primarily innocent character." The pleasure beach’s Ghost Train has received alleged sightings of real ghosts, many reporting that a man called “Mr Cloggs”, a former employee of the ride, haunts it and that his footsteps can be heard. This lead to Most Haunted conducting a paranormal investigation there, in which psychic Derek Acorah claimed there were 3 ghosts residing inside the ride. Most Haunted also investigated the alleged ghostly sightings of some mischievous children in the gift shop.

http://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.co.uk/

Blackgang Chine

The site is home to the Blackgang Chine amusement park, established in 1843 by Victorian entrepreneur Alexander Dabell, whose descendants have owned it ever since. It is allegedly the oldest theme park in the UK, and famous for its lifesize plastic dinosaurs. Originally a general-purpose scenic and curiosity park, it featured a whale skeleton and landscaped paths down the chine to a waterfall and the beach below. The paths were swept away in the early 1900s, and the continuing coastal erosion has since obliterated the chine itself and forced the owners to repeatedly move the clifftop facilities inland. The park's focus now is themed entertainments for families with young children. The same owners run a sister site, the Robin Hill countryside adventure park.

Blackgang Chine is the location of a natural chine (a coastal ravine) in the soft Cretaceous cliffs near Ventnor at the southern tip of the Isle of Wight, England.

Unstable terrain due to the underlying Gault Clay strata has resulted in a succession of huge landslips, notably in the 1920s, giving the area a very rugged and spectacular appearance quite atypical of southeast England.

http://www.blackgangchine.com/

Camelot Theme Park

Camelot is a resort and Theme Park in Charnock Richard, Chorley, England. A site owned by Prime Resorts and home to Excalibur 2 and the one of the UKs first Spinning Coasters the Whirlwind. Camelot may close in 2010 due to dropping attendance figures. This however is dependant on owners Prime Resorts obtaining planning permission for a new housing and leisure development.

Chessington World of Adventures

Owned by the Tussauds Group. It was formerly Chessington Zoo (but all the monkeys escaped so now you can use the climbing frames), but was reopened in 1987 under the new name following a £18 million development investment. It is situated 12 miles South West of central London on the A243, 2 miles from the A3 and M25 (junction 9 or 10). The park is split into many areas, each with its own individual theming such as Beanoland, Themed around The Beano comic, rides.

http://www.chessington.co.uk/

Crealy Park

Crealy Park is a Theme Park near Exeter, UK. Rides, slides, play, magic and adventure.

http://www.crealy.co.uk/

Diggerland

Attractions include rides, drives and static displays, along with play areas and competitions for young children and infants, in fact Diggerland is ideal for all the family.

http://www.diggerland.com/

Dreamland Marga

Dreamland Margate is a British amusement park in the seaside resort town of Margate, Kent. Dreamland opened in 1920 and has since been a popular attraction with visitors to Margate. The park is famous for having the UK's oldest surviving rollercoaster, The Scenic Railway which is a grade II listed structure. Since January 2003, it is currently under threat from closure because of the value of commercial land in the area.te

http://www.savedreamland.co.uk/

Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo

Flamingo Land is noted for being the only site in the country which contains a theme park, a zoo and a holiday resort all in one location (watch out when the food delivery gets confused). Flamingo Land's theme park area contains more than one hundred "white knuckle" rides and slides, there are at least five shows (including the favourite sea lion and parrot performances) and the zoo displays wildlife from all over the world. With over 1,000 exotic animals of all varieties, the zoo claims to be the largest of its kind in Europe. As well as being the largest amusement park in North England by quite a size, the park is also the largest and most popular privately-owned amusement park in the whole United Kingdom, and relies solely on its own revenue (in competition with larger English theme parks that are owned by national corporations and which rely on capital raised by stock market flotations, such as Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.) The Flamingo Park Zoological Gardens were founded within nine acres of land in 1959 by a resident of Scarborough; an entrepreneur in the cinema and theatre industry by the name of Pentland Hick. Hick has been described as both an eccentric and a visionary by his critics. Hick organised expeditions to many locations around the world to capture bottlenose dolphins and sperm whales, including to the Indian Ocean and off the coast of Greenland. Hick was commended for his treatment of the animals, which were fed well and kept in expansive enclosures.

http://www.flamingoland.co.uk/

Gulliver's Kingdom

Gulliver's Kingdom (also known as Gulliver's Matlock Bath) is a Theme park aimed at children aged 3 to 13 in the Derbyshire town of Matlock Bath. Founded in 1978 and owned to this day by the Phillips family, the park now has two sister parks; Gulliver's World in Warrington and Gulliver's Land in Milton Keynes, which opened in 1989 and 1999 respectively. The park is noted for its location - being built on a steep hillside. While this means that a day out can become a "work-out", it provides a unique experience, with many rides being nestled in amongst the trees. The view across to Starkholmes and Matlock Bath's Cliffs is spoken of.

http://www.gulliversfun.co.uk/

Gulliver's World

Gulliver's World is a small theme park aimed at children to the west of Warrington in England. It is set in a forest near Old Hall and Callands. The theme park has a major, wooden, roller coaster, The Antelope. Built in the late 80's the theme park has small rides, mainly a children's theme park, with not many thrill rides.

http://www.gulliversfun.co.uk/

Knowsley Safari Park

Opened to the public in July 1971 by the 18th Earl of Derby. A tourist attraction in the town of Prescot, in the borough of Knowsley near Liverpool, England. Situated on the famous estate of Lord Derby, the vast reserve is home to several different animals including elephants, giraffes, lions, tigers and baboons. The Derby Estate have a tradition of keeping animals, ever since the famous artist and nonsense-poet Edward Lear was employed there in the 19th century to paint pictures of the Earl's collection. Nowadays it is open to the public, who are free to take a bus tour or to drive around the park themselves. The baboons have attracted attention for their loutish behaviour. TV presenter Alan Partridge remarked of monkeys that "if you’ve been to Knowsley Safari Park and they’re pulling wipers off your windscreen and nicking your hub caps, you lose sympathy."

http://www.knowsley.com

Legoland Windsor

An amusement park in Windsor, Berkshire in England, Lego theme. The park is owned by Merlin Entertainment Group, following acquistion by Blackstone Group in 2005, the company that operates a chain of Sealife centres. The park was built on the site of Windsor Safari Park and opened in 96; facilities are mainly targeted at children between two and twelve, although no age groups are specifically barred.

http://www.lego.com

Lightwater Valley

A modern amusement park set in 708,000 m² of parkland, located on the edge of the village of North Stainley, near Ripon, North Yorkshire.

Adjoining the theme park is Lightwater Valley Country Shopping Village, a development of factory outlet shops, with additional Classic Car Collection and Birds of Prey Centre attractions.

http://www.lightwatervalley.co.uk/

longleat

The star of BBC’s hugely popular Animal Park series.

http://www.longleat.co.uk/

Loudoun Castle

Loudoun Castle is a developing theme park set around the ruins of Loudoun Castle in Galston, South-West Scotland. The park opened in 1995 and has since been through the hands of showman Raymond Codona to its current owner, Henk Bembom. Loudoun Castle features three roller coasters, "Rat" which is a Maurer Söhne Wild Mouse, "Wacky Worm" - a junior coaster by I.E. Park and perhaps the star attraction, a Schwarzkopf Silverarrow named "Twist N' Shout".

http://www.loudouncastle.co.uk/

Oakwood Theme Park

Oakwood Theme Park (formerly Oakwood Leisure Park or Oakwood Coaster Country) is a theme park in Pembrokeshire, Wales which attracts 400,000 visitors each year. Oakwood opened in the late 1980s as a very small family park with BMXs, a wooden fort, a 3D-style cinema experience show, go-karts and a water chute ride. The park has done well to reach its current position, consistently rated in the top 10 UK theme parks, given that it is in a quiet, rural part of southwest Wales. The park is well-suited to both thrill-seekers and families; it now incorporates 5 large thrill rides: Megafobia (1996), Vertigo (1997), The Bounce (1999), Hydro (2002) and Speed (2006). A new family ride can be expected in 2007/2008, with a major ride probably being installed in 2009/2010.
http://www.oakwoodthemepark.co.uk/

Pleasure Island Family Theme Park

Pleasure Island Family Theme Park is an amusement park in Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire, England. Built on a site of an old zoo, construction of the park began in the late 80s by Pleasureworld, a division of RKF. Pleasureworld also owned the Pleasurewood Hills Theme Park near Lowestoft, along with several other tourism ventures. It was announced that the new park would also carry the Pleasurewood Hills name. Unfortunately RKF and Pleasureworld went into receivership around 1990/91 whilst the park was only half built. It was later sold to Flamingo Land who completed the outstanding construction work. It has been operating since May 27, 1993 and features a wide range of attractions for the whole family. The park is owned and run by Flamingo Land PLC, who also own Flamingo Land Theme Park and Zoo in Malton, North Yorkshire.

www.pleasure-island.co.uk/

Pleasureland Southport

Pleasureland is a theme park located in Southport, United Kingdom that has been operating since 1912. It is Blackpool Pleasure Beach's sister amusement park. The park is open March to November.Admission which includes all day riding is only £10.00 until further notice.

http://www.pleasureland.uk.com/

Pleasurewood Hills

Pleasurewood Hills is an American styled theme park. It is located on a 59-acre site in Corton, near Lowestoft in Suffolk. Its cuddly mascot is called Woody Bear. Some rides include: Snake in the Grass (formerly Rattle Snake) - Steel rollercoaster; Enigma (formerly Cannonball Express) - Medium steel rollercoaster ;
Alpine Lift - Chairlift. The park was created by local entrepreneur Joe Larter in 1982 as a small American-themed family attraction, containing a miniature railway, Cine 180 and adventure playground. A pattern of yearly expansion was established, with the addition of one or two major new attractions and general improvements taking place every winter.

http://www.pleasurewoodhills.com/

Sundown Adventure Land

www.sundownadventureland.co.uk/

Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park is an amusement park in Chertsey, Surrey, England built in 1979 on the site of a gravel pit which was partially flooded to make a water theme park. It added its first thrill ride in 1987, the "Thunder River" water ride. Like many theme parks, Thorpe Park is split up into several distinctly themed areas.

http://www.thorpepark.co.uk/

West Midland Safari Park

located on the A456 between Kidderminster and Bewdley in Worcestershire, England, opened in 1973. The park has a four-mile drive round Safari, with many species of animals from all over the world in mixed and single species reserves. As well as this, there is a large theme park area, pets corner, discovery zone and Spring Grove House, the park being built within the grounds. The only four White Lions in the UK are on display at the park, as well as the largest herd of Hippopotamus in Europe. The park houses several rare species in need of conservation including African Wild Dog, Aye-Aye, White Rhinoceros.
http://www.wmsp.co.uk

Wicksteed Park

Today the park has many amusement rides, many of which were designed and built by Wicksteed itself including the Laser Dome by VEQTOR, but unlike most larger theme parks such as Alton Towers it does not charge for entry. Open all year round, the children's playground is free for all to use, and one of the largest in Europe.

Windsor safari park

http://www.windsorsafaripark.org.uk/

woburn safari

Elephant Encounters
Sea lion displays (indoors) and keeper talks (outdoors)
Birds of Prey Flying Demonstrations
Animals and Birds in Action (including free flying parrots)
Keeper talks at feeding time: Monkey Business, Penguin World and Land of the Lemurs

http://www.woburnsafari.co.uk

http://www.woburnsafari.co.uk/

http://www.windsorsafaripark.org.uk/

http://www.wicksteedpark.co.uk/

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