Many Mancunians will remember visiting a now lost theme park only a short car journey from Greater Manchester and only a few miles from the ever popular Alton Towers.
The American Adventure theme park in Ilkeston, Derbyshire, was a much loved wild west inspired themed park. Famous for its white-knuckle rides, the park opened on a country estate in 1987 and thrilled visitors from all over the North West in the '80s and '90s.
Originally the site opened in 1985 as Britannia Park but lasted a mere 10-weeks before closing. Derbyshire County Council bought the land in 1986 and sold it to Manchester based Granada who had also recently purchased the Camelot theme park and opened the now lost Granada Studios theme park in Manchester in 1988.
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Different from Granada's other theme parks, American Adventure had an Old West and cowboys versus Native Americans theme. Despite being in direct competition with the likes of nearby Alton Towers, American Adventure initially proved a big hit with its rollercoasters, fairground rides and even its own Wild West town called Silver City with a saloon - Lazy Lils - featuring spectacular staged shoot-outs between cowboys.
Some of the park's most memorable thrill rides included the Runaway Train, The Missile and the Rocky Mountain Rapids. In 1989, the Wild West theme expanded to include other elements of North American culture and history.
For beautiful, historic images from the past have a look at memorylane.co.uk/ and see what you can discover
This included an area based around space travel and featured the Missile roller coaster, which was officially launched by Apollo 11 lunar-module pilot Buzz Aldrin and voted the best roller coaster in the UK at the time. Another of the park's memorable rides was the Log Flume, which had the tallest drop of any in the country.
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From 1996, the park began to decline, and in 1997, Granada sold it to the company Ventureworld. Sadly the park's fortunes couldn't be turned around and it closed for good in 2006.
After that time the site sat empty, the rides were dismantled and either scrapped or moved to other parks leaving it a waste ground. Now, after standing derelict and abandoned for years, a new housing development is now being built on the land which used to be the sight of the resort.
Click through our gallery below for pics of the now lost American Adventure theme park.
However, there was one last ditched to save the doomed theme park. Back in 2018, the Derby Telegraph reported a petition to bring back American Adventure attracted over 10,000 signatures but was ultimately in vain.
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