Black Hole Tent

The Black Hole Tent, is a tent, located at the Alton Towers Resort. It is considered by many to be the most famous tent in the world.

History

The tent was purchased by Charles Chetwynd-Talbot - son of John George Charles Henry Alton Alexander Chetwynd-Talbot, 21st Earl of Shewsbury and 6th Earl Talbot - (then aged 17) from Millets Camping Accessories in 1970, in order to attend that year's inaugural Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts. It is thought that after ingesting a large quantity of psychadelic mushrooms that weekend, the young Charles-Chetwynd decided to give the tent its original and distinctive green and yellow colour scheme, using organic body paint, made from crushed berries and cider.

The tent's original psychadelic colour scheme

When Charles-Chetwynd returned home, he decided to retain the tent in the grounds of Alton Towers. Reports suggest that it was used as a place to "take girls, smoke dope, play guitar, listen to Bob Dylan and discuss all the amazing things you can do with hemp". However, as the future Earl began to grow up, his use of the tent diminished, until it was abandoned altogether in 1973.

The structure lay dormant until 1983, when Alton Towers - now a thirving theme park - decided to install their next big attraction in the tent. Speculation was rife among the newly formed "enthusiast community", who shared their ideas via letters, telegrams, smoke signals and pigeons. Alton eventually plumped for the only option available to them that did not involve "digging a 200ft deep pit and putting something in it", which turned out to be a Schwarzkopf Jet Star II model. The new ride - The Black Hole - drew in huge crowds. Many were left speechless, which was partly because most were expecting a circus and partly because of the infamous break run which was described by many as "like a punch in the gut".

While the ride was tinkered with, or renamed many, many times, the tent itself did not undergo any great changes until 1998, when it was repainted black (or a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very dark blue) in order to make it less visible to the Luftwaffe.

The glory days couldn't last however, and in 2005 disaster struck. The Black Hole came to a halt on its stupid, long, slow, spiralling lift hill. Alton of course, had not bothered to install the most basic of evacuation methods and everybody on board starved to death after 26 days of being stuck 34ft in the air. The ride was promptly closed, demolished and then shipped off to South America (or Eastern Europe - reports differ) where everybody knows that human life is disposable and therefore less health and safety restrictions are required.

Future

As of 2013, the Black Hole Tent has been torn down. It has probably been burnt and the metal melted down. Some say the metal lives on in the spidery thing that may or may not appear with a certain new ride on the spot of the tent. In reality it was probably nicked by gypsies.