At Kent’s fun parks
For years, Kent has provided a happy place for thrillseekers. The county has been home and still is - to many amusement parks. With many set to reopen this month as lockdown rules are relaxed, and with news that work is finally starting on one derelict site, Sam Williams decided to dig through our archives.
Dreamland is considered to be the oldest-surviving amusement park in the country. It was first known as Dreamland in 1920 when its new owner John Iles transformed it into a pleasure garden and amusement park.
That same year the iconic Scenic Railway opened and is now the oldest rollercoaster in the UK, becoming Grade II-listed in 2002. It suffered fires in 1949, 1957 and 2008.
It was announced in 2003 that Dreamland would close and the site redeveloped, although the listing of the Scenic Railway meant it could not be moved. The site was sold to Margate Town Centre Regeneration Company in 2005, who proposed a residential redevelopment - prompting a ‘Save Dreamland’ campaign. Thanet District Council compulsorily-purchased the site in September 2013. It re-opened in 2015 and in 2019 saw 700,000 visitors. Folkestone Rotunda on the seafront was a popular mini theme park complete with rollercoasters, dodgems, a helter skelter, arcades, crazy golf and a log flume.
Its landmark building - The Dome - was built in 1936 and for 40 years was the largest unsupported concrete dome in Europe. In 2003 the owner, the late Jimmy Godden, decided to sell the site. Demolition work saw most buildings gone by 2007. Today, the area is being transformed into a vast development. In 1926, a section of railway line between Broadstairs and Ramsgate Harbour including a tunnel to the seafront at Ramsgate was abandoned.
The land was sold to the Ramsgate Corporation. The site underwent a transformation and for decades was a popular funfair, known as Merrie England and also Pleasurama. With the introduction of cheap holidays abroad, its popularity declined and in May 1998, Pleasurama was destroyed by a fire. Soon after everything was demolished.
After years of sitting empty, work has now started on the site, which will include 107 luxury apartments, a 60-bed hotel and leisure facilities, including shops and food outlets. Diggerland opened in Medway in April 2000, with over 20,000 visitors passing through its gates in the first year.
The idea for the fun park came from Hugh Edeleanu, chairman of H. E. Services, the largest supplier of digging construction machinery for hire in Europe. During an open day at one of the sites, he noticed how much the children enjoyed sitting in the cabs of diggers. There are now four parks in the UK - in Kent, Devon, Durham and Yorkshire - and one in America.