The Ups and Downs of Edwardian Cleveleys

Have a look at this for a moment, will you?


The chances are you’ve no idea where that photograph is located.(Actually it’s located at Phil’s house in Rossall…probably in a suitcase under his bed…but that wasn’t what I meant.) If you look closely, you might be able to make out the sunken gardens which, up until the revolting, Jetsonesque revamp of Cleveleys promenade recently, were sunk into, er, well, into Cleveleys promenade actually.
And that, in case you’re still wondering, is an aerial view of Cleveleys Pleasure Beach.
Believe it or not such a place did exist once, occupying the stretch of ground between Beach Road and Jubilee Gardens.
The same site nowadays is occupied by the Leisure and Cinema Complex, I think. For many years following the Pleasure Beach’s demolition the field lay fallow, proving popular as a venue for galas, circuses, Jubilee Days and gypsies with nowhere better to park their caravans. (The latter have now taken to annoying the residents in Preesall -- how come travellers never actually want to travel anywhere?)
Long before the Pleasure Beach was built, the field was occupied by a windmill...but that's another story.
Anyhow, as you’ve probably gathered, the Pleasure Beach (not exactly a rival to Blackpool’s, but interesting in it's own ramshackle sort of way nonetheless), along with the sunken gardens and the Edwardian shelters and all the other fascinating and historic stuff, is now long since gone.
On the off chance that you still don’t believe it was ever there, however, here’s another view of it, this time from a pedestrian's point of view, looking towards the Traveller’s Rest.


According to some contemporary advert or other for the place, (there whereabouts of which we've currently misplaced so we're working from notes here) the amusements consisted of: “A roller coaster, dodgems, slot machines, a helter-skelter, a carousel and Daredevil Shows.”
Unfortunately we’re not informed of what the daredevil shows consisted…possibly, if modern day Cleveleys is any reflection of its own inglorious past, some old biddies on Zimmerframes dicing with traffic, almost invisible (and certainly unheard) in the blue miasma of petrol fumes and screeching clutches.
The roller coaster sounds fascinating, though. No-one ever believes us when we tell them there was formerly a Big Dipper in Cleveleys, so here’s the proof of the pudding, for all those doubting Thomases/Thomasinaseseses:


It’s not exactly the clearest photograph ever produced, perhaps, but it is an historically fascinating one, as it’s the only image we’ve ever seen showing the Big Dipper from ground level. It's doubtful that the Blackpool Tourist Board lost any sleep over its construction, but back in the early 1940s this must have been an impressive sight towering over the relatively subdued streets of Cleveleys.
Nowadays, if it was still there, which it isn’t, it would probably be mistaken for the relics of a gasometer.