Blackpool History, Mystery, Heritage and Hauntings

Well it seems that a deal has been done with regards to the land that is Central Car park... the council has agreed to lease the land for 250 years to Nikal Ltd and Media Invest Entertainment who are behind the hi-tech Chariot of the Gods themed flying theatre attraction. 250 years... WOW  do the council know something we do not ! The nine year scheme is set to transform the former Central Station site close to the Promenade in a series of four phases which will create around 1,000 jobs and aims to attract 600,000 new visitors to the resort. However ! The deal means initial development works on the 17 acre plot can get under way. But plans for the first development on the site, a multi-storey car park to replace the parking currently occupying most of the site, is not likely to begin this year. A hybrid outline and part detailed planning application for the car park is set to be submitted late 2020.The man behind the project is Austrian pop music mogul Nor...

The boat store was originally built as a car park for 90 cars in 1935, with access at either end - if you look carefully you can see where the other entrance once near an old concrete bench. Nov 2014 an open day was held , of course I had to pop down to capture what lay beneath before it was lost to progress. Glass skylights were here to let in the light ( and rain ! ) So much space , due to the constant flooding in later years was turned into an underground boat store. Blackpool based Fylde Boat Angling Club took over in the early 1970's The boat store is now filled in as part of the sea defence works at Anchorsholme, to remove any future chance of potential failure of the sea wall following the current £22m project to build a new one. 

Other names - Empire, Hippodrome; Kings (briefly), ABC, later: Cannon, MGM, Syndicate. In 1905 Houdini appeared here... Below find images taken over the years until the last month ( on site - don't ask was legal - didn't trespass ! ) taken by myself.  The Empire of 1895 was a variety theatre and ballroom with a flat floor and a gallery around three sides and a shallow stage. In 1900 it was renamed the Hippodrome and also used as a circus. In 1910 the arena was removed and the main floor raked for cinema use, with seasonal variety. The original building was of a scale and degree of architectural pretension that would have sat comfortably in the Winter Gardens complex. It had a lively brick facade, following the bend in Church Street. Some part of this fabric may have survived the radical rebuilding of 1963, but the present building contains no visually obvious memory of the Empire/Hippodrome. The converted building did, however, retain a stage and r...