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Pleasurewood Hills American Theme Park opened its gates to the public for the first time in 1982. Local entrepreneur Joe Larter put together a small collection of attractions which included little more than a miniature railway, Cine 180 building and a Fort Fun adventure playground. In subsequent years, the park slowly expanded. New attractions being added during to the winter months, when the park was closed, ready for the new season the following Easter. Most of the attractions added to the park during the 1980's were provided by a company owned by Henk Bembom, a Dutch showman who in more recent years owned and operated a theme park of his own based in Scotland called Loudoun Castle. A number of attractions at Loudoun Castle were rethemed versions of those found at Pleasurewood Hills years earlier.
RKF Take Control Towards the end of the 1980's, a controlling interest in the park was sold to a property development company called RKF who also built a number of new leisure attractions in the Norfolk and Suffolk area. These included the Sea Life Centre in Great Yarmouth, Ripley's Believe It or Not on Great Yarmouth seafront and the Bure Valley Railway in Aylsham. RKF also started work on building a park similar to Pleasurewood Hills in Cleethorpes. However, RKF declared bankruptcy in the early 1990's and this forced all their leisure attractions into receivership. These were all later sold to new owners.
Change of ownership In 1990, the management team at the time staged a buyout of the park. The new team were responsible for bringing a number of new attractions to the park during their six year reign, with the largest acquisitions being the Log Flume and Cannonball Express rollercoaster. This management team also signed a deal which would bring Mr Blobby's Crinkley Bottom TV Studios to the park in 1995 which replaced the Castle Theatre shows. As part of this deal, Noel Edmonds would make occasional promotional visits to the park during this period. In 1995 the parks tag line and general theme changed from a focus on Pleasurewood Hills being an "American Theme Park" to a "Family Theme Park", presumably as a result of this new high-profile deal with a British television favourite.
Leisure Great
Britain In 1996, Pleasurewood Hills was acquired by Queensborough Holdings PLC and was managed by Leisure Great Britain, a company traditionally associated with caravan parks. Their ownership continued until 2000, and is popularly considered to be a poor period in the parks history for new acquisitions and attendance figures. New additions during this period included a number of funfair style attractions such as the Supertrooper, Sky Screamer, Mega Dance and the Waltzers.
The Peter Hadden Era In 2000 New Pleasurewood Hills was born when long time employees at the park, Peter and Peggy Hadden took ownership of the park. Peter was one of the management team who acquired the park during the 1990 to 1996 period and continued to manage the park for Queensborough during their reign. Around the time when the park changed hands, Peter issued a statement which said: "Right now, we can't compete with the larger parks when it comes to rides and attractions, but we surely can be equal to them in guest relations and the quality of a visit" and with a view to raising visitor figures he added: "I think we can build attendance back up to 350,000 within the next several years, and that would be a good number for us. We would be happy to be in that attendance range" The biggest addition to the park during this period was the hugely popular spinning mouse rollercoaster ride which was added at the end of the 2000 season. A number of other attractions were added to the park in an attempt to attract more thrill seekers to the park including the Fireball, Megaspin Rollover and Mega Drop.
2004 saw the most recent change of hands at the park, with French amusement park operator Grevin et Cie, who were more recently renamed Compagnie des Alpes, taking over at the park. Pleasurewood Hills was the first park in the UK to be owned by the company who operate a number of other visitor attractions across Europe. A host of changes were made during the companies first year of ownership including the addition of Thunderstruck and a large scale clean up of the park. The biggest addition to the park since the company took over is Wipeout, a boomerang rollercoaster which was previously located at the now defunct American Adventure park. Originally due to arrive at the park in 2006, a number of problems, said to be due to planning permissions and technical issues, led to the ride being delayed until 2007. 2008 saw a much more modest investment in the park, with a small children's ride called Woody's Funky Flyers being the only new addition to the park. The ride is positioned in the area previously occupied by the Cine 180 tent. A number of special events were put on at the park during this year in celebration of "25 years of Pleasurewood Hills". In 2009, the popular log flume attraction was completely dismantled, repainted and renamed Timber Falls. A new Circus and Tango show was also launched in the Castle Theatre. |
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