Oblivion
— — the second before the drop.
Not only on a wall.
“The first vertical-drop roller coaster in the world, opened at Alton Towers in 1998. Riders are held over the edge for a slow count, then released straight down a 180-foot shaft into a black mist below. Twenty-five seconds in total. The queue line tells you, in red letters, that you will die. Generations of British teenagers have stepped off and asked, immediately, to go again.
Oblivion, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Oblivion sits in the X-Sector of Alton Towers, a theme park in the Staffordshire Moorlands of central England. It opened in March 1998 as the world's first vertical-drop roller coaster, designed by Bolliger & Mabillard of Switzerland. The drop is approximately 55 metres, with the final section entering an underground tunnel. The ride lasts around 75 seconds end to end. Alton Towers itself sits on the grounds of a nineteenth-century Gothic Revival estate above the River Churnet, and remains the most visited theme park in the United Kingdom.
The ride is built on the rim of a small Staffordshire valley, so the drop opens onto a horizon of beech and oak woodland rather than a brick perimeter. From the launch crest, in fair weather, the Peak District is visible on the northern skyline. The mist generated in the underground tunnel is fed by a chiller system that runs through the summer months. Cool, slightly damp air rises out of the shaft between trains. Local jackdaws have learned to ignore the noise entirely.
The park is open from late March through early November, with extended hours during the Scarefest and Fireworks events in October and November. Oblivion is a single-rider ride with a minimum height of 1.4 metres. Queues are longest between eleven and three in summer; the first hour after gates open and the last hour before close are reliably quieter. The ride sits a short walk from the entrance via X-Sector. A single-day ticket covers all rides; a fast-track pass is sold separately.