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Camelot Theme Park - May 2014 | Oblivion State Urban Exploration

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Camelot Theme Park - May 2014

Ferox

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Visited this spot last week with a non forum member friend. Been on about a trip here for a while as my mate fancied it. Got in no problem and made our way up to the food court and dungeon. Had a good mooch around the dungeon then came out of their and made our way up the the Knightmare roller coaster featured in the pictures. All going well until suddenly we seen a van coming into view on the ground inbetween the the dungeon and the Knightmare ride. A quick dash into cover and we where hiding behind some fencing and able to see the van propley. To our horror we soon realized it was a police van. Stayed hidden for a while until he drove off and parked up near the food court area, pretty much blocking off the way we had come in. A new exit had to be found quickly which luckily we managed to do and got out of their :p Never heard of any police presence on this one, just the angry security guard which we where looking forward to meeting in some respects. I have since found out that another explorer was caught by security at Camelot afew months ago and the guard said the police do use the site for training. Could explain there presence.

The park opened in 1983 and was operating seasonally until late 2012. The park was based on the story of 'Camelot, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table'. The local area was once covered by the largest lake in England Martin Mere, which was first drained in 1692 by Thomas Fleetwood of Bank Hall in Bretherton. (The story is that Sir Lancelot's parents King Ban of Benwick and his queen Elaine escaped to Lancashire from their enemies in France. Elaine went to help King Ban who had fallen and put Lancelot down on the shore of the lake, by where he was abducted by nymph Vivian who vanished into the waters of the lake with him. Vivian brought up Lancelot and when he went to King Arthur's court he was knighted as 'Sir Lancelot of the Lake'.) Martin Mere has been locally known as the 'Lost Lake of Sir Lancelot' following the myth.

In 1986 it was taken over by The Granada Group and operated by them alongside its now defunct sister parks American Adventure and Granada Studios Tour. Camelot had seen a downturn in attendance in later years, in 1995, Camelot's attendance was 500,000 visitors throughout the season. In 2005 Camelot's attendance was only 336,204 visitors. In June 1998 the park was subject to a management buyout in which the park went to Prime Resorts Ltd.

In a 2006 survey of healthy food available at leading tourist attractions in the UK, Camelot came joint bottom scoring only one point. In February 2009, Prime Resorts announced that the park was in receivership and would not reopen for the 2009 season. The hotel was bought by Lavender Hotels in March 2009, and in April 2009, it was announced that a buyer had been found for the park and that it would reopen in May 2009.

The theme park was purchased by Story Group, a construction company based in Carlisle and leased to Knight's Leisure who run the park. The site's future remains uncertain as the new owner is planning to redevelop the site. Current indications are that this will be a housing development. The closure of the park was announced by its operator, Knights Leisure, in November 2012, the managing director blaming poor summer weather and events such as London 2012 and the Queen's Jubilee for declining visitor numbers.

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Thanks For Looking

 

skeleton key

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Again good to see you getting out and about Ferox.

Nice write up there and cool pics to be had here.

Thanks for the share (y)

 

TheBaronof Scotland

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nice share, do fancy this place at some point, so close to another weird building I done over xmas ;)

glad to hear you didnt get spotted by the coppers (y)

 

Ferox

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shaddam

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Cool stuff there fella (y) , cheers

:comp

 
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