Alton Towers – from Iron Age to Rollercoasters
Visiting Alton Towers today, it's hard to believe that this hugely popular Staffordshire theme park spreads across the site of an iron age fort. The grounds were gradually developed over the years and once held a castle, which was the home of the Earl of Shrewsbury from 1412.
More than three centuries later, the 15th Earl took the house and estate firmly in hand, bringing in an impressive taskforce of labourers and artisans to begin a major transformation. Alton Abbey's landscape was tamed, bringing with it lakes, statues and the magnificent Chinese pagoda fountain.
It was in the 1890s that the estate began to be developed as a tourist attraction. Members of the public flocked to the grounds to marvel at firework displays, balloon festivals and even instruments of torture. However, these early heydays were short-lived, as a family dispute caused the house to fall into decline.
The Alton Towers estate was bought up by a local businessman and all its contents auctioned off. Regardless of its lack of exciting attractions, thousands of loyal visitors continued to visit the house and its cafes, until the Second World War saw it requisitioned by the army as a cadet training base.
In 1951 it was returned to the Alton Towers company. However, as there was a post-war shortage of copper, lead and other metals, the whole interior of the house was stripped out. The entire building was abandoned, save for the Chapel, which became home to a model railway, and the Armoury, which evolved into a gift shop.
Twenty years later new owners took over, carrying out major renovations, so in the 1970s the public were once again able to enjoy the house and surrounding landscape. A number of small attractions were also placed around the estate to encourage further visitors.
In the following decade everything changed once more. A businessman named John Broome used his vision to develop the land into a 500 acre family leisure park. In 1979 almost seventy containers arrived on site, carrying vast steel structures that were to become the country's first ever double-corkscrew rollercoaster. Tens of thousands of visitors were lifted, twisted and plummeted along its exhilarating length until it was finally decommissioned in 2008.
An altogether more sedate attraction was the popular swan boats. Housed on the lake that had once held the Splash Kats, they were slowly moved around the water by pulleys below the surface, changing direction a couple of times every minute. As visitors continued to crave bigger and better thrills, these swan boats became less popular and were removed in 2004.
In 1990 John Broome sold Alton Towers to the Tussauds Group and it has continued to change hands. However, it remains as popular as ever and, as Europe's eleventh most visited family theme park, attracts almost three million people each year.
Written by Glynis Charlton
