Fantaseas was a chain of indoor waterparks situated in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

that opened in the late 1980s, but due to various technical, and financial difficulties closed in the mid-nineties. The first was opened in Autumn 1989 on the outskirts of

Dartford Dartford is the principal town in the Borough of Dartford, Kent, England. It is located south-east of Central London and is situated adjacent to the London Borough of Bexley to its west. To its north, across the Thames Estuary, is Thurrock in ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

. The building contained six

water slides A water slide (also referred to as a flume, water chute, or hydroslide) is a type of slide designed for warm-weather or indoor recreational use at swimming pools or water parks. Water slides differ in their riding method and therefore size. So ...

, a

lazy river "(Up A) Lazy River" is a popular tune and song by Hoagy Carmichael and Sidney Arodin, published in 1930. The melody is by Arodin, arranged and with words modified by Carmichael. It is considered a jazz standard and pop standard, and has ...

wave pool A wave pool is a swimming pool in which there are artificially generated, large waves, similar to those of the ocean. Wave pools are often a major feature of water parks, both indoors and outdoors, as well as some leisure centres. History Th ...

, an outdoor heated lagoon as well as a cafe and gaming

video arcade An amusement arcade, also known as a video arcade, amusements, arcade, or penny arcade (an older term), is a venue where people play arcade games, including arcade video games, pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, mer ...

. Visible on the skyline from the nearby

M25 motorway The M25 or London Orbital Motorway is a major ring road encircling most of Greater London. The motorway is one of the most important roads in the UK and one of the busiest. Margaret Thatcher opened the final section in 1986, making the M25 th ...

the building dominated the local landscape and became quite an icon of the town. A second opened in August 1990 in

Chingford Chingford is a suburban town in east London, England, within the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The centre of Chingford is north-east of Charing Cross, with Waltham Abbey to the north, Woodford Green and Buckhurst Hill to the east, Walt ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, and featured many of the same rides as the Dartford park, albeit in a different configuration. The Chingford park was considered by some to be 'tamer' than its Dartford counterpart, but still contained many of the same styles of water slides as its sister site. In the summer of 1992, it was found the foundations of the Dartford site were inadequate to support the building. It's a common myth around the area that the sole reason the Dartford site was shut down was because of this issue, this is in fact untrue as the main reason was financial. Many considered the parks to be

fads A fad, trend, or craze is any form of collective behavior that develops within a culture, a generation, or social group in which a group of people enthusiastically follow an impulse for a short time period. Fads are objects or behaviors that ...

and typical of the grandiose

get-rich-quick scheme A get-rich-quick scheme is a plan to obtain high rates of return for a small investment. Most schemes create an impression that participants can obtain this high rate of return with little risk, skill, effort, or time. The term "get rich qui ...

s of the time. In reality, the company encountered significant financial difficulties with a lack of attendance especially outside of the school holiday seasons. There were also several serious accidents at the Chingford park which tarnished the reputation of the company. This, coupled with high maintenance costs, built up debts of over £6 million in an eighteen-month period. Despite the Dartford site being fairly profitable for the company (including the planned repairs of its foundations) it still wasn't enough to save the waterpark and both sites were eventually shut down. The Chingford site re-opened briefly as ‘Hydropark’ before closing permanently. The site laid derelict for a decade before

Waltham Forest The London Borough of Waltham Forest () is an outer London borough formed in 1965 from the merger of the municipal boroughs of Leyton, Walthamstow and Chingford. The borough's administrative headquarters are at Waltham Forest Town Hall, wh ...

Council built a new indoor pool, Larkswood Leisure Centre, on the site, which is now shared with Nuffield Health Fitness & Wellbeing Gym. The Dartford site also lay dormant for almost a decade, but remained in remarkable condition and was guarded by security with scheduled checks on the water pumps and other parts. Its fate was sealed in the early 2000s, when the buildings were demolished. The site was used as a refuse dump and became derelict, with plans to turn it into housing. The residential development of 156 homes was completed in 2016. Because Fantaseas shut down in 1992, images were on film and as such pictures of the sites are very rare, however recently on Facebook and other image sites people have started to upload scans of the Dartford site including flyers and even some pictures of the site during construction. A brief clip from Thames News dating back to 1988 covers redevelopment plans for Dartford at the time and shows the original concept for the waterpark, it was somewhat larger with the building, slides and layout of the complex being quite different to the final product which would open a year later, at this point it was simply known as “Water World”.

References

External links

Former Dartford site on Google MapsForum topic about Dartford complete with pictures
{{Coord, 51.44736864000819, 0.24225532545568942, display=title Water parks in the United Kingdom Defunct amusement parks in the United Kingdom Amusement parks opened in 1989 1989 establishments in England

See also

References

External links