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Talbot Street Tuesday/Thursday (Picture Heavy)

Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

No way can remember The energizer that is one ride I completely forgot about !
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

For today's Talbot Street Tuesday, we return to the Towers of the 1950s, and we start with the rather familiar structure of the gatehouse,

Whilst most of us pass under every visit to the Towers in order to get to Dark Forest or Cloud Cuckoo Land, few will have seen it ever with an actual gate in situ. If you have a nagging feeling that something is missing here, there is actually a turret behind the bush to the right of the picture.
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From the gatehouse, we get a good view down the driveway beyond the classic car (dwarfed alongside the Towers) towards a very bare looking Fountain Square, with dense undergrowth at the far side, where today you'd find the path to Cloud Cuckoo Land.
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A look back down the driveway reveals a shot that would look much more familiar to visitors to the park today.
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But our destination for today is actually Cloud Cuckoo Land, or as it was in the 50s, a vast waste ground behind the Towers.

This picture is taken from roughly the area where Wobble World Cafe is sited today, and shows a striking contract to the park we know today.
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Looking towards the ruins of some building we believe were used by the army during the war. In it's hey day, this area was part of the Tower's expansive gardens, and was most likely park of the house's kitchen gardens. (You may just be able to see where Greenhouses attached on to the back of the Towers building near the Tower towards the right).

Beyond the ruined building can be seen the South Tower, which is attached to the side of the Octagon. This Tower is seldom seen these days, as the sight lines of the modern park largely hide it from view. You actually have to walk around this Tower if you exit Hex towards Cloud Cuckoo Land (rather than via the normal route through Her Ladyship's Garden).
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A little further down the area, we find ourselves in what is now the site of The Driving School. (beyond the trees is the archway that links Cloud Cuckoo Land to Fountain Square)
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Moving through the area, this is taken from around where The Galoppers operate today, looking towards the ornate Towers that forms part of the entrance to the Tower's Chapel, in Her Ladyship's Garden.

Beyond the tree to the right you can see the door which would have connected one of the greenhouses to the Towers and between that tree and the clump of bushes can be seen the Picture Gallery. Today this forms part of the queue to Hex, which is noted for it's gloominess, however here can be seen the skylights that were once used to light up this room, making it suitable for displaying part of the Earl of Shrewsbury's art collection.
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Those skylights however would not last long after these photos were taken.

As with all of the 1950s photos that have featured in Talbot Street Tuesday these photos were taken to document the house before the interiors were stripped out, a process that had begun by the time this picture was taken, showing piles of building materials piled outside the front of the house, waiting to be sold on
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Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

Wow, it was in a right state wasn't it? It makes me feel better about the Towers today. The house may no longer have its interior but at least it's presentable.

One of the tragedies of the Towers is that it only existed in what I would say was its complete form for a few decades. After the 16th Earl died in the 1850s, the interior was gradually sold off in large chunks over the next hundred years before it was finally all ripped out.

On a slightly related note, I don't know if anyone's been down to Cotton College recently, but that's in a really bad way. I doubt that there's much left there that's salvageable any more. Another Pugin masterpiece just left to rot and it was only abandoned in the nineties. It's almost criminal.
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

It looks a really mess, but it would have been interesting walking around
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

CGM said:
Wow, it was in a right state wasn't it? It makes me feel better about the Towers today. The house may no longer have its interior but at least it's presentable.

One of the tragedies of the Towers is that it only existed in what I would say was its complete form for a few decades. After the 16th Earl died in the 1850s, the interior was gradually sold off in large chunks over the next hundred years before it was finally all ripped out.

On a slightly related note, I don't know if anyone's been down to Cotton College recently, but that's in a really bad way. I doubt that there's much left there that's salvageable any more. Another Pugin masterpiece just left to rot and it was only abandoned in the nineties. It's almost criminal.
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Yes mate, I've had a drive down there a few times. I'd love to have a good explore around there after reading quite a bit about the place. I took a few pics when I was there last time. I'll put them up if I remember tomorrow ;)
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

I loveeeeee this section! Look forward to it weekly! It stopse from buying the book they sell as you seem to pack alot more information in this thread. You also have some recent photos too (as in 1960's up) and that interests me too

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

From the TowersStreet Facebook:

This week for Talbot Street Tuesday we look into the question of what do you get for the site that has everything to celebrate its first birthday?

How about a shiny new History section?

Yes that's right folks, after a year of living a nomadic existence on Facebook, Towers Street's history content is finally gaining a nice new home on the main site, as we beta launch our history section.

There is still lots of work to do on it, and not all our Talbot Street Tuesday content has migrated across yet, but we're now one step closer to becoming the biggest and best history resource for Alton Towers on the internet.

You can now find the beta site at:
http://www.towersstreet.com/history/

Stay tuned over the coming weeks for further exciting changes coming to a Talbot Street Tuesday near you!

Happy Birthday!
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Enjoy :)
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

It's still on, however now as a new weekly addition to the history section of the website.

TowersStreet said:
Welcome to Talbot Street Thursday, and in a departure from our previous updates, this week we're very proud to bring you TowersStreet's very first past ride page.

Over the coming weeks we'll start to bring to life the park of the past, but for now head on over to TowersStreet, sit back, relax and try to avoid the asteroids, as we bring you the maiden voyage of our new Black Hole page.

http://www.towersstreet.com/history/past-rides/the-black-hole/
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TowersStreet said:
For this week's Talbot Street Thursday (it will be back to Tuesday next week... we promise) we take a trip into the deep south aboard the Towers' very distinctive fun-house from the late 80s.

http://www.towersstreet.com/history/past-rides/mississippi-showboat/#
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TowersStreet said:
Oops... looks like it's another Talbot Street Thursday this week after all.

But nevermind... this week we Do Look Down, into the pit of Oblivion, and the construction of SW4 and the X Sector.

http://www.towersstreet.com/history/construction-archive/#
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Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

Just a thought.

Maybe an when the history section of the website is updated, there could be a pointing post placed here. and then any comment about it could be done here, so this becomes a supporting area for new history updates.
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

Nice idea. Probably worth sending a PM to a member of the team. I'm sure it would be easy enough for them to do that weekly. No different to how the Facebook updates were posted here weekly. :)
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

It seems we have been a bit forgetful to post in this thread recently (I blame Phil, he has done the past few FB updates!)

Anywhere here is this weeks update:

This week's Talbot Street Thursday is looking rather fishy as we take a dive beneath the ocean waves and explore the world of the Octopus, one of the park's classic thrill rides
http://www.towersstreet.com/history/past-rides/octopus/
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

djtruefitt said:
This week's Talbot Street Thursday is looking rather fishy as we take a dive beneath the ocean waves...
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Damn, you got me all excited there. For a second I thought you had managed to find a clip of the infamous april fools gag where Wardley was on Going Live, promoting the "shark coaster" that would dive under the lake, and everyone would have to wear scuba gear to ride it.
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

I've just been catching up with the new history section of the site. Loving it so far :D

In particular I like the additional "What Happened Next..." and "But the story didn't end there..." sections. Very interesting read and I don't think I've seen another site focus on the attractions history after it left and the fate of similar rides.

There is however a lot that can be tided up in terms of grammar, sentence structure and links that I'm not entirely sure are doing what they are meant to (such as clicking photos to view them full size). I'd point out specific examples but most pages have them and they are easy to spot. Plus you probably already know about them and plan to tweak it later once more content is up.
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

I also like finding out what happened to rides after they left the park, it's sometimes kinda sweet and sometimes very sad to see how they end up. Can't wait to see more pages up and running as I personally am finding it a lot more interesting than I thought I would.

Is it shameful that I never knew that there was a bob at Alton until reading? :p
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

I take it all the maps that are currently on the history section are those owned by TST members (or those who are known by TSTers) and they've been scanned? If that's the case I like the effort that's been gone through to do this rather then just nicking maps from Google! (If that's true obviously =P)

I like how the map from 1980 has been included. Until recently I'd never seen and I just presumed that it was lost forever =P But great update anyway! As already mentioned, I love the "What happened next" and "But the story didn't end there" as I think it's a very interesting pieces of trivia =)

Great update as always!
 
Re: Talbot Street Tuesday (Picture Heavy)

What does the front of the 1980 map look like? Not sure if I've come across that before?
 
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