Camelot Theme Park: A Medieval Knightmare

It’s 1983. Twenty-one years after the Martin Mere lake of Lancashire was drained, a brand new theme park was opening on the land. At first Camelot Theme Park, named after the story of Camelot and The Knights of the Round Table, was a huge success among the families who visited, however, as larger and more innovative parks began to open over the years, a mix of declining attendance and lack of new attractions led to financial issues which meant the park was eventually forced to close in 2012.

For nearly eight years Camelot sat abandoned, with seemingly no future, and has become a must-visit destination for urban explorers. The up and down story of how this formerly well- loved park became a forgotten site and left in plain sight is truly fascinating and shows how volatile the theme park industry is, so let’s dive into the amazing tale of Camelot Theme Park!

Local Legends

To many, Martin Mere may just seem like a regular lake, albeit a dry one, but there are actually a lot of legends attached to this area surrounded by villages and farmland. The parents of famous knight Sir Lancelot, King Ban and Queen Elaine of Benwick, left France for Lancashire to escape their enemies. One day, the king fell into the lake, and Queen Elaine left her baby on the shore to help her husband, where the baby was kidnapped by a nymph.

The nymph raised the child, who would eventually go to King Arthur’s court, where he was named Sir Lancelot of the Lake. The lake in question, Martin Mere, has been given the nickname The Lost Lake of Sir Lancelot, and an area with all this local significance seemed like the perfect place to build a theme park based on, well, a local legend.

The Early Years

Camelot’s opening decade, the 1980s, was a largely successful time for the park. The area is reasonably well-connected to major cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds, and Blackpool Pleasure Beach was the closest thing to Camelot in the region, however it was still relatively small at the time, so a theme park would naturally be in demand. Every year attendance was at a solid rate, and the park was thriving. It truly was a land of great (k)nights, and amazing days.

• 

In 1986, Camelot Theme Park was sold to the Granada Group, a UK company that also owned The American Adventure theme park, and the Granada Studios Tour (many people believed Granada Studios was haunted, having being built on a Victorian graveyard, and some even claimed to have seen ghosts in the building!)This marked the beginning of a new era for Camelot. The year after the buyout, the theme park received several attractions, including Kingdom In the Clouds- a Ferris Wheel, and Dragon Flyer, an extremely rare diesel-powered coaster model manufactured by S.C. Italy. Many of Camelot’s 1987 rides continued to operate until the park’s closure in 2012, with the exception of Dragon Heights, which was removed after a few years of operation due to maintenance issues.

The (slightly) Negative Nineties

The 1990s could be considered a good time for Camelot Theme Park, with many new rides and attractions opening during this time. Sadly though, a large number of the attractions opening throughout the nineties were highly unreliable, particularly The Rack, a Vekoma Canyon Trip, constantly needing maintenance, and some were even closed shortly after opening. The park was struggling to innovate in order to keep up with the likes of Alton Towers and Chessington, and, as a result attendance was rapidly declining, with just 500,000 visitors for the 1995 season. In 1998, Camelot was bought by Manchester-based company Prime Resorts Ltd; it’s debatable whether this change in ownership helped or hindered the park.

The 2000s brought three new rollercoasters to Camelot, allowing the park to finally compete in the UK thrill market. Gauntlet, a Pinfari ZL42 similar to Brighton Pier’s Turbo, debuted in 2001, and a Maurer Spinning Coaster with the name Whirlwind opened just two years later. 2007 marked the opening of what was arguably the park’s largest and most successful investment: Knightmare, a thrilling coaster built by German manufacturer Schwarzkopf, that could be seen from a nearby motorway.

The Decline of a Great Park

Sadly, the 2000s weren’t all good for Camelot Theme Park, yearly attendance was dropping at a significant rate and in 2005 just 336,204 visitors set foot inside the park. A year later the park ranked second bottom in a healthy food survey for major tourist attractions in the UK, and as you can imagine, this vastly damaged Camelot’s image. Camelot Theme Park did not open at all in 2009, for the first time in the park’s history, likely due to the financial and attendance issues faced at the time, exasperated by the 2008 financial crisis.

With heavy hearts the park’s owners announced it would be forced to close in September of 2012, due to financial issues and a drop in attendance, and the UK lost a classic theme park. Camelot Theme Park holds so many memories for so many people, yet today lays forgotten and abandoned, open to anyone who wishes to have a look at their own risk, and subject to occasional vandalism.

• 

It’s heartbreaking to see such a beloved attraction simply neglected the way it has been for the last eight years, and while the future of Camelot’s site is uncertain, many people believe it will be the home of a new housing development, especially after it was purchased by construction company Story Group. In February 2020 the park’s most popular rollercoaster Knightmare was demolished, to both fascination and dismay from fans and enthusiasts. In recent years other rides have been relocated to parks across Europe; by this point it seems Camelot Theme Park is sadly not here to stay.

What are your memories of Camelot Theme Park? How do you predict the site will be redeveloped in the future? Let me know below, and join the conversation!

1. 

   Thank you so much! I’m so glad you enjoy them. Sorry about the late reply -Lily 🙂

2. 

   Your articles are amazing. Thank you for your hard work.

3. 

   It’s definitely worth a visit! 🙂

4. 

   Interesting! Never heard of that park before

5. 

   Love this Lily

If you enjoyed this article, check out some of my other posts from theme park around the world, and consider subscribing to have the latest theme park content delivered straight to your inbox!

Photo credits:

-themeparkthrillseekers on YouTube and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/themeparkthrillseekers/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvfQBWnla9Wvs7LDjPT-J6w

-@thade_the_extraterrorestrial on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thade_the_extraterrorestrial/

Thanks for your help!!

Thanks for reading!

-Lily