Pleasure Land Southport

Explore by Schools ;p
done in April 2010 but I lost the photos :fail

Hey guys my first time posting on here even though I do the photographs for all our posts on here. Anyways....
One morning Elwin was busy - I wanted to head on down Southport way to check out this themepark I used to visit as a kid. Awesome day exploring!!! I arrived at the site, there were boards everywhere saying no entry, private land, prosecution blah blah blah.

I decided to speak to a taxi driver sat outside, he advised me just to walk in there but to be careful; there were people living on the site.

I wandered in cautiously.

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no one was around apart from a builder - i tried to ask permission he said no one was here or would care so I continued on to take a quick peek:



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with a lot of the rides taken down and a lot of building materials I continued on as quickly as I could to the attractions which were left around the site
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really cool that there were still so many of the rides and quirky features around -



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After exploring the site for about half an hour I started to feel as though someone was following me, I was messing around trying to get my lomo camera to work when all of a sudden I noticed a hat pop out from behind the pirate ship - no joke!!! Not knowing what to do I continued to walk off to the other side of the grounds when I saw a shadow on the wall next to me and someone shouted 'Alright Love' and nodded at me.

Two guys approached and one of them looking very serious and asked me what I thought I was doing! Being alone with some very expensive camera equipment I decided to be as polite as possible.

I explained I was a photography student and interested in the site because I used to visit it as a child. The men seemed wary and weren't too happy about the situation for a while but agreed to let me carry on for another 20 mins or so until the owner came back... Another 10 mins or so passed and the guys seemed to ease up a little when one of them offered me a cup of tea. :coffee ...They seemed alright but didn't seem as though they even had permission to let me go walking around the site. Anyways I carried on as quickly as possible: :jester

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I was just finishing my explore when an angry owner and his family turned up!!! He came hurrying upto me in a rage I was pretty intimidated and considered running but there seemed little point - plus, I really cant run that fast. I re-explained my reasons for being there and the owner told me that they were trying to restore the place so did not want images of the park looking trashed. In the end once I told him about my project he seemed okay and started talking me through the history of the site (even pulled out a folder of photos from his car boot of the place when it was open). Seemed a shame that due to funding it had ever had to close, as I remembered the fond times I had, had. At that time there were more white knuckle type rides but these had completely disappeared now. I chatted for a good half an hour to the owner and in the end I felt built up at least a marginally pleasant rapport with the guy.

On to take a couple more shots then Id be out of their hair:



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The park is still there for you to visit, although I would advise contacting the fairground owners before showing up on site - if your caught out, you'll have a lot of explaining to do :thumb. Sorry about the messy report as I did not know how to re-size the photos on here, if anyone could help I'd really appreciate it- maybe I should stick to the photos and let Elwin continue to put up the reports from now on...

Thanks for reading - hope you enjoyed!!!!