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Alton Towers
Alton Towers Resort ( ) (often referred to as Alton Towers) is a theme park and resort complex in Staffordshire, England, near the village of Alton. The park is operated by Merlin Entertainments Group and incorporates a theme park, water park, spa, mini golf and hotel complex. Originally a private estate of the Earls of Shrewsbury, Alton Towers' grounds were opened to the public in 1860 to raise funds. In the late 20th century, it was transformed into a theme park and opened a number of new rides from 1980 onwards. In 2019, it was the second most visited theme park in the UK with 2,130,000 visitors which puts it after Legoland Windsor. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Alton Towers was only open from July 4th until November with a limited capacity meaning only 670,000 visitors came to the park in 2020. The park has many attractions such as Congo River Rapids, Runaway Mine Train, Nemesis, Oblivion, Galactica, The Smiler, Wicker Man, Rita and TH13TEEN. It operates a tota ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wicker Man (roller Coaster)
Wicker Man is a wooden roller coaster at Alton Towers theme park in Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Manufactured by Great Coasters International, the £16-million ride opened to the public on 20 March 2018 following a three-day weather delay. It set several milestones among wooden coasters including the first to be built in the UK in 22 years and the first to incorporate fire. Initially codenamed "Secret Weapon 8", a traditional naming scheme for major upcoming projects at Alton Towers, its official name was revealed in January 2018. History In October 2015, The Flume was closed permanently, with an announcement made prior to the park reopening in 2016. Planning documents were submitted to Staffordshire Moorlands District Council on 23 April 2016. They documented the basic layout of the project, named "Secret Weapon 8" (SW8), and the surrounding area. The plans included retaining The Flume's former station building as a 'Smokehouse' restaurant, but this idea was dropped and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton, Staffordshire
Alton ( ) is a village in Staffordshire, England. It is noted for the theme park Alton Towers, built around the site of Alton Mansion, which was owned by the Earls of Shrewsbury, and designed by Augustus Pugin. In the 1914 map by Whiston, there were copper works in the village. The village is on the eastern side of the Churnet. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book, and contains numerous buildings of architectural interest; the Round-House, Alton Castle (now a Catholic youth retreat centre), St Peter's Church, The Malt House, St John's Church and Alton Towers. Alton was served by the Alton railway station which was opened by the North Staffordshire Railway on 13 July 1849 and closed in January 1965. The Chained Oak in Alton has been made famous by the ride Hex – The Legend of the Towers at Alton Towers and the legend involving the Earl of Shrewsbury Earl of Shrewsbury () is a hereditary title of nobility created twice in the Peerage of England. The second earldom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Duel - The Haunted House Strikes Back!
A duel is an arranged engagement in combat between two people, with matched weapons, in accordance with agreed-upon rules. During the 17th and 18th centuries (and earlier), duels were mostly single combats fought with swords (the rapier and later the small sword), but beginning in the late 18th century in England, duels were more commonly fought using pistols. Fencing and shooting continued to co-exist throughout the 19th century. The duel was based on a code of honor. Duels were fought not so much to kill the opponent as to gain "satisfaction", that is, to restore one's honor by demonstrating a willingness to risk one's life for it, and as such the tradition of dueling was originally reserved for the male members of nobility; however, in the modern era, it extended to those of the upper classes generally. On occasion, duels with swords or pistols were fought between women. Legislation against dueling goes back to the medieval period. The Fourth Council of the Lateran (1215) o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Battersea Power Station
Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned Grade II* listed coal-fired power station, located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Nine Elms, Battersea, in the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was built by the London Power Company (LPC) to the design of Leonard Pearce, Engineer in Chief to the LPC, and CS Allott & Son Engineers. The architects were J. Theo Halliday and Giles Gilbert Scott. The station is one of the world's largest brick buildings and notable for its original, Art Deco interior fittings and decor. The building comprises two power stations, built in two stages, in a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built between 1929 and 1935 and Battersea B Power Station, to its east, between 1937 and 1941, when construction was paused owing to the worsening effects of the Second World War. The building was completed in 1955. "Battersea B" was built to a design nearly identical to that of "Battersea A", creating the iconic four-chimney structure. "Batter ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pearson Plc
Pearson plc is a British multinational publishing and education company headquartered in London, England. It was founded as a construction business in the 1840s but switched to publishing in the 1920s. Spender, J. A., ''Weetman Pearson: First Viscount Cowdray'' (London: Cassell and Company Limited, 1930). It is the largest education company and was once the largest book publisher in the world. In 2013 Pearson merged its Penguin Books with German conglomerate Bertelsmann. In 2015, the company announced a change to focus solely on education. Pearson plc owns one of the GCSE examining boards for the UK, Edexcel. Pearson has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It has a secondary listing on the New York Stock Exchange in the form of American depositary receipts. History Construction business: 1844 to the 1920s The company was founded by Samuel Pearson in 1844 as a building and engineering concern operating in York ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Tussauds Group
The Tussauds Group was an entertainment company which is now a part of Merlin Entertainments. It was based in Poole, Dorset from where it managed a portfolio of brands and over 50 attractions that included the Madame Tussauds waxworks, Legoland Theme Parks, Legoland Discovery Centres, Sea Life Centres, PortAventura Park in Spain, Gardaland in Italy, Heide Park Resort in Germany, The Dungeons, The London Eye, The Blackpool Tower attractions, The Orlando Eye, Warwick Castle, Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, and Chessington World of Adventures. Merlin Entertainments bought the company in 2007, thus becoming the world's second largest leisure group after Disney. History The 1700s The physician, Philippe Curtius began to create organs and biological structures from wax. After creating organs, Curtius went on to recreate notable people in society out of the medium too. Curtius put these models on display to the public in Berne, Switzerland where they caught the attention o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Hole (roller Coaster)
Black Hole, briefly known as Black Hole II (1988) and New Black Hole (1989), was an enclosed steel roller coaster located at Alton Towers theme park near Alton in the English shire county of Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Manufactured by Anton Schwarzkopf and designed by Werner Stengel, the Jet Star 2 model opened to public in 1983 and operated until 2005. The track layout was enclosed within a large tent to provide a dark ride experience. History Taking the place of the former Dinosaur Land attraction, which had then been moved into storage, the modular steel track for Black Hole was constructed by Anton Schwarzkopf. The roller coaster was given a space theme and debuted at the park in 1983. In 1985, the bottom of the first drop was modified slightly to make the ride run more smoothly. Lights were also added to the lift, so that riders were able to brace themselves for the first drop. For the 1988 season, Black Hole was dismantled and transported to Europe, where it had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Around The World In 80 Days (Alton Towers)
Around the World in 80 Days was an attraction in the Talbot Street (now David Walliams World) area of Alton Towers theme park, Staffordshire, England. The attraction opened around 1981 or 1982, one or two years after the park first opened. It was the first dark ride at Alton Towers, one of the largest in the UK at the time, and was produced by Keith Sparks for the park's owner John Broome. It was a 4-minute boat ride which followed the adventures of Phileas Fogg and was loosely based on Jules Verne's 1873 novel ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' and took riders through various different countries from around the world. Each boat could hold 9 people and there were 10 boats with 1,000 guests an hour. Each country had its own music and some animated characters. You could travel through London, Siam, Egypt, New York City, Venice, Greenland, Las Vegas, Vienna, Holland, Brazil, Paris, London Docks and Battersea. The ride station was themed around the London docks and featured an anim ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Flume (Alton Towers)
The Flume was a Log Flume at Alton Towers in Staffordshire. It opened in 1981 and was rethemed in 2004 coinciding with its sponsorship by Imperial Leather. The ride was a bath time themed log flume with three drops. It was the longest log flume attraction in the world at the time of opening. The attraction closed in 2015 and was replaced by the Wicker Man rollercoaster. Ride Experience The ride was approximately six minutes long and began with the loading of passengers into the boats, which had a maximum capacity of five. The boarding took place in a moving, circular station. Once the boat dispatched from the station, it took several turns through woodland and then travelled up to the first lift hill. The boat was then dropped down a small drop to gain some height, turning around the woodland until it came to the second lift hill, which was enclosed in a darkened hut, followed by a 'blind' drop. Following the Imperial Leather sponsorship, a shower sprinkler and riders were met w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Corkscrew (Alton Towers)
Corkscrew was a steel roller coaster located at Alton Towers theme park, near Alton in the English shire county of Staffordshire, United Kingdom. Corkscrew was manufactured for Alton Towers by Dutch company Vekoma, engineered by Werner Stengel of German Ing.-Büro Stengel GmbH (Ingenieur Büro Stengel). The coaster was located in the Ug Land area, formerly called Talbot Centre. It was the theme park's oldest ride and is considered the greatest factor in promoting the new theme park to the British public. It was one of the first double-inverting coasters in England, and it was well received publicly in the 1980s. History In 1979, John Broome, one of the then directors of Alton Towers, wanted to make the Towers and Gardens into a new style of leisure attraction. On , Corkscrew opened to a crowd of 30,000. It became the main attraction of the park, and led to attendance numbers doubling from 500,000 in 1979, to over 1,000,000 in 1980. It was a Vekoma MK1200 Corkscrew with B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chairlift
An elevated passenger ropeway, or chairlift, is a type of aerial lift, which consists of a continuously circulating steel wire rope loop strung between two end terminals and usually over intermediate towers, carrying a series of chairs. They are the primary onhill transport at most ski areas (in such cases referred to as 'ski lifts'), but are also found at amusement parks, various tourist attractions, and increasingly in urban transport. Depending on carrier size and loading efficiency, a passenger ropeway can move up to 4000 people per hour, and the fastest lifts achieve operating speeds of up to or . The two-person double chair, which for many years was the workhorse of the ski industry, can move roughly 1200 people per hour at rope speeds of up to . The four person detachable chairlift ("high-speed quad") can transport 2400 people per hour with an average rope speed of . Some bi and tri cable elevated ropeways and reversible tramways achieve much greater operating spe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alton Towers Railway Station
Alton Station, previously called Alton railway station and Alton Towers railway station, is holiday accommodation and an abandoned railway station in Staffordshire, managed by the Landmark Trust. Opened in 1849 by the North Staffordshire Railway, the station was part of the Churnet Valley line and served the village of Alton and the country estate at Alton Towers. In 1954, the station was renamed Alton Towers. After being closed in 1965, Alton Towers was purchased by Staffordshire County Council in 1969 to curtail persistent vandalism of the station building, and in 1979 was sold to the Landmark Trust, who renamed the site to Alton Station and converted the former station buildings into holiday accommodation. History At the height of the so-called "Railway Mania", when railways were being built across the whole country, the North Staffordshire Railway obtained Parliament's permission to build a number of lines, one of which was the Churnet Valley Line, on 26 June 1845. I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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