U.K.'S BEST SKATE PARK

[Carl Hayway]

   Searching back in my cobwebbed filled head.....Wickstead Park had a great outdoor park with a really nice kidney bowl.
  Malibu Dog Bowl for the craziest transitions ever or the indoor park at Grimsby for that gnarly in your face ramp and the smooth long half pipe.
  I live now in Florida and am lucky enough to have a Vans park to skate.They have a doe boy pool which has the best transitions I have ever skated.
  Nearly 40 now.....will that stop me?
  Remember Lincs Skates Dominates!!!

[Felix]

Yes I remember malibu Dogbowl in Lenton Abbey Notts-managed to skate it twice as a snotty kid. It had a 'half pipe' up on a stage. Does anyone remember the bowls in the middle of Hyson green flats?-literally hundreds of people would skate them and the local evening post could not understand why skaters would be 'hanging about' the flats when there was all that space in the Goose fair car park.........
Felix

[HBM_Dodo]

errr, my first post here so be gentle

first off hello everyone, me names dave doherty, and i was a gillingham local, although i lived (and still do) in dover, i used to skate with docker, emu, and billy smith, and visited most of the london parks.

my favourite, was always gillingham, cause it was smooth varied and had no dodgy trannys, although the pool was tight, it was my favourite, the pool at mad dog scared me shitless, as did the gold bowl at skatestar (i`ll be buggered if i know how anyone could skate that)

rolling thunder was the funnest place though, smoking weed in the hidey holes at the back of the halfpipe, and actually skating with shogo for a day, when he was practising laybacks in the peanut, i have some pictures somewhere, dodgy polaroids, but you can tell who it is.

anyways, i still skate everynow and again, and its good to find this site.

ps i believe docker still skates too, anyone know for sure? (never did find the guys real name out)

[RollingThunder]

the exotic goings on in the rooms at the back above the half pipe. All these things will stay with me forever. The fact that it was concrete and indoor made it my favourite UK park.

As one of the perpetrators of the exotic goings on in the rooms behind the half pipe at Rolling Thunder (it was called the Brat Shack by the way) I'd have to agree that it was my favourite UK park too. I skated there nearly every day from the day it opened until the day it closed and even afterwards until some moron from the car scrap yard next door poured oil over most of the runs. A lot of the park was bit sketchy in its construction do you remember some of the concrete was shiny and super slippery? There were some monstrous kinks too. Then there were those two little bowls off the half pipe (nicknamed the bollocks) that were basically unskateable. I spent most of my time in the half pipe or in the triangular banked area just to your right as you came in the door which was great for carving and doing berts etc.

Harrow was a great park and I went there a lot especially after Rolling Thunder closed.

Does anyone remember the fibreglass park up in north London? It was north of Tottenham out near Walthamstow I think. Two of us made the long trek up there from Chiswick it had an incredible 3/4 pipe that was about 17-18' in diameter and the place was deserted.

ROM was also great (still is) but those 30 stops on the District line weren't too tempting when Rolling Thunder was only ten minutes away.

I also had fun at Skate Circus in Lambeth it had a huge halfpipe and like lots of UK skateparks it was designed and built by non-skaters. The halfpipe had 10+ feet of vert on it meaning no-one ever even got a wheel out.

I'll post more on London's sdaly departed parks as I remember them.

[Stevie B]

Did anybody notice last months Transworld (had Muska on the cover) it showed lance mountains board collection and in it Lance mentions skating mad dog bowl with Seth Parker (the owners son)
All I remember about Seth was He had the Pool really wired and rode a benjy Sinclair and orange Gyros it was the first time I had seen a pair of trucks ground down to the axles
He always charged me to get in even though it was just me ,him and his mate skating most of the time.made fun of my back side airs and then would borrow my board and rip round the park just to let me know it was me was crap and not my equipment.

[Glaze]

Anyone ever skate Lockleaze in Bristol ?
Had the most savage bowl known to me - Specs ripped it

[alan_v.]

How about Knebworth and stevenage? Two good parks within spitting distance made the road trip worthwhile.
Anyone ever visit the skatepark at Thruxton race track?
It was the 1st park i skated (on my california sun). Went with my brother whilst my parents watched the racing. Sadly got buried under a moto-x track.

[Brad]

Wicksteed Park - designed by a non skater, bad transitions a rough surface and cracks everywhere, violent security, and crap management. Hellish deep bowls with big round fat lips and only about two places in the whole park to grind!!
What a fantastic place, I rode there everyday of the school holidays and all day on Saturday and Sunday and loved it. The local crew were (and are) a brilliant bunch of lads Ally, Jez, Nic, Oscar, Harvey, Sixer, Jonesy, John Bod, Massa, Pilch (in the early days) Lee and Ivan, Johnny Bocker, Rasher, Ash and Nigel, Pav, Crouch Carter, The Muties - Johno(The Edge Skatepark) John Tiny, H, Grinner, Keiran, Alice, Stu, Tom Reed, John the Swan, Rude Kid ('You Piece of Bastard') not forgeting Chilli on the Bike, Errol, Roy, Frank and the others on Rollerskates,and many more whose names escape me at the moment.

Ketterings Beach will be remembered with great affection by all of us that thrived on it's idiosyncracies - perfection is nice but making the best of what you got makes a local!

[david tring]

kettering (skateside?) was memorable, one of the first woodern ramp parks in Europe and definattly the first with a FULL PIPE in it.
malibu dog bowl in Nottingham was my home park, visitors hated it due to the transitions and amount of vert. We lived there 24/7!

[david tring]

Yes I remember malibu Dogbowl in Lenton Abbey Notts-managed to skate it twice as a snotty kid. It had a 'half pipe' up on a stage. Does anyone remember the bowls in the middle of Hyson green flats?-literally hundreds of people would skate them and the local evening post could not understand why skaters would be 'hanging about' the flats when there was all that space in the Goose fair car park.........
Felix

Hyson green bowls were the birth place of skating in nottingham along with the broad marsh banks.

I wrote an article aobut these places and the poeple that skated there on my website
http://www.davidtring.com/skate_memories.htm

since i wrote this severla of the old skool skaters in Nottingham have taken contact, including one guy who lives in Australia now.  ther ewill be a reuinion for nottingham old skool skaters in the summer of 2003.
contact me for details....

[Carl Hayway]

Wickstead Park was full of poor transitions,cracks etc. but it was still a great park.I remember that we could only dream of skating somewhere like Uplands or Del Mar.
That was the one thing that seperated the UK skaters from the rest of the world...we make the best of what we have.
Great times

[Mini Mansell]

a lot of years back i visited my first two concrete parks  in one weekend.

saturday was at the Mere   in scarbrough.  big bowl.  we all considered crap at the time but would be loved today.  6 foor deep.  maybe 60% sides.    and the smallest tightest pool  ever

sunday i visited Colne. in lancashire
big fig 8 pool,  tight snake run   wooden half pipe.  vert wall.  huge  quater pipe along one end of the park,  and all indoors.

[blackmog]

I use to skate at Wokingham(local) - ok, Fleet(local) - excellent but very rough - excellent sessions, Farnborough(local) - excellent, Rolling Thunder - ok - There was one down the old kent road or Elephant and Castle -very long time ago - I think the MDB - excellent, Romford - fantastic, Harrow - nice half-pipe - Guildford great place to be, I remember the Billy Smarts skate-park - excellent small transition area. I am negotiating with my wife to let me have a 1/2 pipe in the back garden for my boys.

My vote from the old days would be Romford or Harrow or Gillingham and Farnaborough - because it was down the road for me.

Graeme

[AL]

hi mini, yeah i remember the park at the mere in scarborough, owned by a guy called tony,helped do some of the final skim on the snake run. they had a team called pure fun, my bro skated freestyle under 12,s for them, around 1977 if i remember correctly......
memories of skating an eightwheel board there trying to get seven wheels out!!!!

[Mini Mansell]

the snake run.  now that brings back memories
all bad.  it was the smallest tightest ever

hi mini, yeah i remember the park at the mere in scarborough, owned by a guy called tony,helped do some of the final skim on the snake run. they had a team called pure fun, my bro skated freestyle under 12,s for them, around 1977 if i remember correctly......
memories of skating an eightwheel board there trying to get seven wheels out!!!!