Towers ruins

Alton Towers, the palatial stately home which nowadays gives its name to the amusement park in its grounds, looks – from a distance – to be still the once grand aristocratic home it once was.
You’d never guess it is largely a ruin.

After the earls left in the early 20th century, it fell into disrepair, then dereliction.

If you walk up close (as any paying visitor to the park can do), you can see the crows flying in and out of the unroofed rooms. And there is no access, even to spaces that still have decoration (the chapel for example) because of how dangerous the state of the fabric is.

 

To be fair to the owners of the park & estate, what is left is kept in some sort of order, and repairs to the building did go on apace for over ten years from 1999 when there were even tours of the safer parts, but it all seems to have slowed a bit.
The restoration project still is alive, but, as I say, it moves slowly.

Muse shows a leg

On top the Colonnade in the gardens at Alton Towers is a line of statues of which this is one.

In her pose, she rather confidently 'shows a leg'; resting her right arm on her thigh, with her right leg stepped up onto a support of what might be small rocks. 

I was surprised, as you rarely see the legs on modest Graeco-Roman sculptures of women - unless it is of Diana, goddess of the hunt (who needed a short skirt in order to run), or, erm, nudes. 

In the catalogue, she is named as Melpomene, the muse of Tragedy, though traditionally it would be her left leg raised. The object she holds is the Mask of Tragedy.

But nowhere can I find the significance of the raised leg. I wonder what its import is?

The gardens behind the amusements

Alton Towers will be re-opening soon - and hordes of pleasure seekers will be pouring in from all over the country to enjoy the delights of this famous amusement park.

It's a shame though that many of the visitors may not even come across one of the real delights of the estate: the formal laid-out gardens.
Just right now though, the gardens rest in solitary silence.

Jumble for a fantastical journey

The flying car sculpture at Alton Towers Hotel by Peter Price demands to be seen from every angle, as something new appears on each side!  The objects in this jumble (deliberate jumble to be fair) are all ones that would have been taken by the inventor and explorer Sir Algernon Alton in his fantastical journeys.
Sadly, Sir Algernon is a completely fictional character, invented as a 'theme' for the hotel.  Ah well.

You can see the front side of the sculpture by clicking here

Summer gardens

With June comes Summer. Erm... one hopes.

The gardens of course have flourished in the recent rains, but a little sun would help too.  The gardens at Alton Towers are among the best in Staffordshire, and they will be open to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme project in two weeks time.
Worth going I think.

Chitty Bang Bang for Xmas

It’s the big Christmas rush time. Everywhere – from supermarkets and pubs – is already alive with Christmas consumption (who cares about Monday?)

One of the busiest places – apart from family homes – will be the Alton Towers hotel. What better way for parents to enjoy Christmas than give the kids a huge playground of a place to enjoy themselves in?

This fantastical sculpture-fountain outside the hotel’s main entrance is by a local sculptor, Peter Price. It’s based on the flying car from the book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

Alton's constrained loops

Alton Towers may be Britain's leading amusement park, but its landscaping is quite different to that of somewhere like, say, Blackpool Pleasure Beach or Six Flags in Texas.  For a start, Alton Towers has lots of trees and is also contained in smaller spaces - because it was of course designed, 150 years ago, as the pleasure gardens of a very rich artistocrat.

So the lines and loops of its rides seem more constrained to me than the ones of the big, brash parks.

A little bit of China

The so-called 'Pagoda Fountain' at Alton Towers is well away from the rollercoasters that the park is better known for.
Older folk (or people just tired of the hustle & bustle) can just take a left turn at Nemesis (which is a really terrifying ride), and find themselves in the tranquillity of the old landscaped gardens, which were created in the 1820s/30s.

The pagoda dates from the 1830s. To be honest, it is not so much authentic Chinese as a fantasy of China, but I like it.