Talbot Street, The
Land of Make Believe and Cred Street
Cloud Cuckoo Land as
we know it today is one of the most rethemed areas of the park since
it came into use as a Fairground in the 60s before being turned into
Talbot Street in 1981, which is template on which the area is based
on even today.
Here we take a look
at some of the plans and concept art work that has gone into the
recreating the area over the past 30 years.
Talbot Street
These are two
concepts we believe the park drew up for Talbot Street. The first
is the concept for the block of the street that was built in 1987,
containing the Motor Museum and Raven's Den Shop. In the plan you
can see the block has an ice cream parlour, a Vintage Motor
Showroom and a third corner unit. These shop fronts would today be
the equivalent of the Driving School Entrance, Wobble World and
Wobble World Cafe.
What was actually
built is believed to have been quite different to what the
concepts show.
The second are
concepts for an unbuilt Ice Cream Parlour. (possibly the same one
seen in the above plan) The ideas look very exciting and would
have brought a truly immersive dining experience to the Towers,
taking guests to an 1950s Ice Cream Parlour and beyond.
And Doom and Sons
as an artist thought it might look way back in 1980.
Land of Make Believe
Two concepts for
Bertie Bassett's Fun House. Eventually Bertie Bassett's Sweet Shop
arrived in The Land of Make Believe (actually opening when the area
was still Talbot Street). The name on these concepts seems to
suggest the neighbouring playground was also planned to take on
the Bertie Bassett, but this was later dropped in favour of
Children's World.
Of the two concepts
here the second is very similar to what was eventually built, and
still exists in a similar form today as the entrance for the
Driving School in Cloud Cuckoo Land.
Cred Street
When the Land of Make Believe was
reimagined as Cred Street the central attraction was Nickelodeon:
Outta Contol, or indeed Nickelodeon: Mind Maze as it appears in
this concept for how the front of the attraction looks. The second
image is the plan for the inside of the ride, shop and cafe.
When McDonalds came to the park
in 1998 the Snack in a Box restaurant was re-magined into the
Cred Street Diner. The restaurant, which was quite faithful to
the concept, which is still fondly remembered by many today,
despite having been remodelled in 2008 to become Burger King.
Skip forward to 2005 and the
drawing of the frontage of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
which would be built almost identically as to how this concept
imagined it.
And the next year
some imaginings of what the Driving School would look like when
built at the other end of Cred Street.
