Victorian pleasures in the park
Britain’s oldest theme park continues to spark children’s imaginations,
When a whale skeleton washed up on the shores of the Isle of Wight in 1842, the locals who hauled it up the island’s cliffs had no idea that it would still fascinate the public almost two centuries later. The whale would eventually become the central attraction of the theme park now known as Blackgang Chine, which teeters over the island’s southern tip.
This year, Blackgang celebrates its 175th birthday as the oldest amusement park in Britain. Passed down through five generations of the same family, the park gradually expanded from its single whale skeleton to a full-blown amusement arcade, complete with a cowboy town, fairytale castle, and a life-size Tyrannosaurus Rex monster.
Blackgang was one of the first of its kind when opened by Alexander Dabell in 1843, with industrial workers from across Victorian England flocking to the island on their weekends. In the intervening years, however, other amusement parks seemed to surge ahead and, with just a roller-coaster, Blackgang could not provide the sort of headline-grabbing wonders seen at Alton Towers and elsewhere.
In recent times, parks have spent millions on attractions that are one step ahead of the latest technological thrills. Blackgang, which remained staunchly traditional, risked falling behind. But it is precisely this simplicity that ensures Blackgang retains its charm, according to owner Alexander Dabell, the great-greatgrandson of the park’s founder. It is easy, he says, for today’s children to tap away on a smartphone, or obsess over social media. Echoing the advice of the National Trust, he thinks the “essence of childhood” lies instead in nature, creativity, and imagination – and says Blackgang, perching over one of the most striking views of the English Channel, is well placed to deliver.
They provide a few props – a dinosaur here, a coral reef there – and children use their imaginations to create the rest. In Cowboy Town, children scramble around the hay in cowboy hats, blasting their parents with cap guns – a marked contrast with one of Britain’s most popular fairgrounds, Thorpe Park, which recently launched a Love Island attraction to cash in on the ITV show.
“I was brought up with it, ever since I was a little splot,” Dabell says. “It gets into how you are, how you think, how you behave. [As a child] I considered it perfectly normal, for example, to have dinosaurs at the bottom of my garden.”
The arrival by helicopter of Blackgang’s life-size dinosaur models in 1972, he remembers, was televised by Blue Peter.
Dressed in a cream suit and bowler hat, 57-year-old Dabell walks around the park patting dogs and chitchatting with children: there’s more than a hint of Willy Wonka about the man, who firmly believes Blackgang has become an antidote to modern children’s technology obsession. “The magic of Blackgang isn’t the ability to bounce you up and down in a big roller-coaster, [which] is not particularly imaginative in my humble opinion. Instead, it takes you to a place that only your imagination can take you.”
Chris Marsh, an accountant from Hertfordshire, has been visiting the park since he was a child three decades ago. He loves bringing his two children, he says, because it “fires up their imagination” and allows them to “run around and be free”.
Laura Coleman, who runs a tea room near Chichester, takes her sons to Legoland and other parks, but says Blackgang’s connection with nature gives it a unique appeal.
Blackgang has, of course, been forced to change – at least partially – with the times. The original 1972 model dinosaurs were static; since 2014, they can move and roar. In coming years, Dabell hopes, he will project light shows on to the cliff face that overlooks the park, making it “come alive”.
The park must also move with the times in a more literal sense. Blackgang sits atop a section of clay on the island’s southern tip that is vulnerable to sea erosion, so every few years, parts of the park have to be pulled inland. Indeed, the original chine upon which the park was named has long since disappeared into the sea. “Greatgreat-grandfather had a great eye for a location,” Dabell says, “however he wasn’t a geologist.”
For five generations, the “magic wand” of running Blackgang has been passed from each father to his eldest son. Yet with no children of his own, its future leadership looks uncertain – though, Dabell insists, “I don’t intend to let go of the reins for at least another quarter of a century-plus.
“That’s part of the excitement of it all,” he adds quickly. “If you plan it all out, it can get a bit boring.”