Pleasure Beach Resort
— — the wood that still rattles, a century in.
Not only on a wall.
“The amusement park at the south end of the Blackpool Promenade. The Big Dipper has been running on its wooden track since 1923; the Grand National, with its two trains racing on parallel rails, since 1935. The Pepsi Max Big One was the tallest roller coaster in the world the year it opened. Out beyond the rails the Irish Sea goes flat and grey, the trams come past every few minutes, and the chip shops keep their lights on late.
Pleasure Beach Resort, 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.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach sits on a 17-hectare site at the south end of the Blackpool Promenade in Lancashire, facing the Irish Sea. The park was founded in 1896 by A. W. G. Bean and John Outhwaite and has remained in the Thompson family for four generations. It is one of the United Kingdom's most-visited tourist attractions, drawing several million visitors a year, and runs ten roller coasters alongside the Hot Ice arena show and the historic Casino Building by Joseph Emberton.
The park's calendar runs roughly from Easter to early November, with peak crowds during the late-summer Blackpool Illuminations along the Promenade. The Big Dipper, designed by John A. Miller, opened on 23 August 1923 and is among the oldest operating wooden coasters in Europe. The Grand National followed in 1935. The Pepsi Max Big One opened in 1994 at 213 feet, briefly the tallest roller coaster in the world.
The site is roughly five metres above sea level on a strip of reclaimed sand between the Promenade and the South Shore. Onshore wind off the Irish Sea is the constant; coaster operations adjust when gusts pick up, and the wooden structures audibly answer the weather. Blackpool tramway stops at Pleasure Beach station outside the gate; the South Pier and the Sandcastle Waterpark are within a few minutes' walk along the seafront.