My main memories of the park were first of all the Polo Tower, then the cable car, then the ‘Texas Tornado’. As you can see the Polo Tower is still there, its in dreadful shape once you get close. My parents took me to the park, sometime when I was in high school, late 90s I would guess. They bought me a wrist band for unlimited rides, and on that particular day it also got me a free Polo Tower ride. The bit you ride in was a bit strange, quite claustrophobic but on the whole it was great. It rose slowly upwards and then stayed at the top for a while, where there were great views of the bay. The cable car was over near the log flume, I remember it took a path from the back of the park, towards the front over lots of buildings, nothing very appealing, sort of dirty, some people had dropped shoes on the roof. The ride went over the main road, and on to the sea front, where it turned around and came back. From what I could see in the park there was nothing left of the cable car, including at the far end over the road. I’m sad about that, I remember one of the cable cars had a life size plastic model of ‘Frontier Fred’ the park mascot, and as we were queueing to get on there was a bunch of three lads waiting in front. The operator made one of the lads get on the car with the plastic dog, and his friends were absolutely dying of laughter. Lastly the Texas Tornado coaster! I remember queueing to get on it, or more accurately, waiting on my own. I must have gone on that ride about 10 times in a row with my unlimited armband because each time I got off, there was no queue and I just cut through to the front again. It was a tame ride really, but good fun, lots of trees in the way as you went around. I did a bit of a research and it seems that ride was one of the first to be demolished in 1999, since no one would pay the £100,000 they wanted for it. A shame as it was a good historic roller coaster, orginally called the Cyclone and imported from Paris in the 1930s.

All in all the experience was a bit weird, hence the longer than average blog entry. Plus the fact I haven’t updated this page in forever, its been a while since I’ve taken any photographs of note which is a sad thing. I found walking around underneath the Log Flume, surrounded by broken up toy trains quite surreal and definitely creepy. I know I am a wuss about these things, I have a love/hate relationship with fallen down or disused things, I find them fascinating but they frighten the life out of me. Especially stuff thats sunken in water, so finding the sunken toy train was.. interesting. I definitely love the entrance signs we found, my Dad and I had great fun piecing them back together like a jigsaw. Its sad to think that they’ll probably soon be gone and there wont be anything left. I’m sad I didn’t come and do this longer ago, when there were more rides left standing, and more interesting things around, alas these photos are better than had I never come and it certainly brought back some great memories.

I remember it being open, as I have said in the gallery infact. My memory is of sitting just to the left of the entrance (as we’re looking at it in these pictures) with my feet in a smaller pool made for sailing toy boats. I was fascinated by the turnstyles on the door, the old metal kind that fairgrounds used to have (and Chester Zoo if my memory serves me) and I really wanted to go inside and swim. I must have been about 7 years old. Its a very dim recollection. If only as a child I’d had the forethought to photograph everything. Or infact owned a camera.. Ah well. Here’s one of the only pictures of the Lido in its former glory I can find. I don’t know when, but it looks like a good day out.

I may try writing to the council to ask about going inside to make a proper record of what it was like, but I have a feeling they would say no. They are a sneaky council and would be suspicious of me. At least if I had tried to ask permission it might look less bad if they caught me having scaled the wall.

It’s difficult to get any closer pictures of the grounds than I managed here, because there is 24 hour security – you can see their little office in one of the pictures. What I did notice however, is that inside the door of their office are lots of photographs pinned to the wall and I’m sure they are of the asylum. Makes me wonder whether they give people permission sometimes to wander and take photos. I keep meaning to look into it.

The place is fantastic to walk around, I wish I’d been in Lancaster when it was still acting as A&E, actually seeing it trying to function as a modern NHS hospital would have been brilliant. Some parts of it still appear to be used – certain sections seem to have been taken over my NHS work men for storing equipment and vehicles. There’s also an active cricket club somewhere on the grounds, but I didn’t see a cricket pitch.

I originally set off to photograph some of the old factories down by Bury Bridge, but I took a detour, and I’m glad I did because I’ve never been past the asbestos factory and found a gate open before, let alone one of the factory doors. The bigger of the two sheds is heavily boarded up and I could barely find a crack to look through, which is a shame because there appeared to be water flowing from inside somewhere and I could hear it gushing from by the door. I would have liked to know where from.
One of the doors further down was open slightly, and I managed a few rough photos through the gap – only one made it on here, the clock that had stopped at 5.06. There were some other bits and pieces inside, an old metal lathe and some ladders. I think this would have been a much more interesting place to look around inside but from the state of the roof I think rather more dangerous.

The pictures speak for themselves really. The fire damaged building I remember seeing smouldering about a year ago, I’d love to know what it was used for when the factory was active what with all the metal ducting attached to it. I guess I don’t know enough about asbestos making to even hazard a guess, other than perhaps some form of ventilation but it had enough contact with asbestos to warrant four warning signs.