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Playgrounds of the 80's

Etymologist

Etymologist

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Hello everyone,

I'm doing some research on playground furniture of my youth as part of a project I'm doing for an art gallery in London. This was in the 80's, before playgrounds got all modern and safe.

I'm looking for any kind of information: photos (taken for whatever purpose), diagrams, plans, playground brochures, the names of the structures etc. Anything that could jog a memory of what these structures were like.

Although I'm spreading my research across a wide range of playgrounds, my focus is the playground in Brockwell Park as that's where I grew up. I've got this photo of my brother and I enjoying the roundabout, which would have been in about 1988 (see below)

I've looked for old playgrounds but they've all been upgraded in the last 20 years! So if anyone knows of any old playgrounds still in existence anywhere else that would be great.

Any help would be massively appreciated.

playground.jpg
 
I remember going to (what seemed like) a huge adventure playground - I can't remember at all where it was though. It had a death slide and everything. It would have been between Streatham/Tulse Hill and Brixton proper. Perhaps somebody could suggest where it was? I saw the place while going past on a bus a few years ago and thought "oh I remember that!" but was gone too quickly to remember the name of the road.

I used to go to the playground on Lanercost Road in Tulse Hill a lot, which was a concrete place over the top of a car park. Pure metal and concrete, the whole thing; there were some monkey bars and swings but in general it was a terrific place to run around, fall over and remove all the skin from your knees. The ventilation shafts from the car park below were huge mysterious cylinders with mesh on top that it was always a challenge to climb onto. On one side there was an additional structure that was made to look like the tower of a ship, with all sorts of steps and dark places to run around inside; predictably it smelt of piss the whole time, and apparently after a while (after I got too old to be going to playgrounds) a lot of needles started to appear there as well, and in the end it was demolished.
 
Ariel runways/Zip lines you had to hang on to real tight :D

Worked on them as an adult and I never remember having a harness as a kid.
 
FridgeMagnet said:
I remember going to (what seemed like) a huge adventure playground - I can't remember at all where it was though. It had a death slide and everything. It would have been between Streatham/Tulse Hill and Brixton proper. Perhaps somebody could suggest where it was? I saw the place while going past on a bus a few years ago and thought "oh I remember that!" but was gone too quickly to remember the name of the road.
Click to expand...


the one on railton road?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Atl...=wSJ-6iKrrAztOX042zT4KA&cbp=12,299.04,,0,7.11

the one by max roach park had one of those death slides too... just sheet metal nailed to this hellish drop with no side railings
 
I used to love the iron horse ....they all looked manic with flared nostrils and six or seven kids could hi ho Silver at one go.....we also had a big iron bit of equipment we called the Cheesecutter, never heard anyone refer to such a lump, before or since....it just kind of went back and forward, but with speed if enough kids got the momentum right.

Our sand pit was always full of dog shite and the parkie would run over arms flapping if you dared go down the slide in an anorak....in case of a toggle string strangulation death scenario??
 
memories just came flooding back! - not sure if this is much use to your research. I grew up on an estate in tottenham (feel free to pm me if you want to know exactly where), and the playground for about 10 blocks had 3 features:

a slide, quite tall, the base of which often had a puddle in it. It was set on a concrete pyramid of sorts.

The key bit i remember best though was a construction made out of two intersecting concrete tubes - permanently water logged apart from in the height of summer.

Ive got strong memories of trying to play in the concrete tubes and not go in the puddle that ran through it. for years if i had a fever i would dream of hiding in a concrete tube, often with a storm raging outside.

To the best of my memory that was all there was apart from a roundabout.

Next to this playground was a fenced off, large concrete area. My dad, bless him, painted tennis lines on it himself, but there was no net! The main attraction was a garage door-sized wall that kids would play football tennis up against (you have one touch, and the ball has to hit the wall).

Id be happy to draw you a diagram of it all if you really wanted.
 
Adventure playgrounds were the best. I have information about slade garden and Battersea park adventure playgrounds.
 
G_S said:
Ariel runways/Zip lines you had to hang on to real tight :D

Worked on them as an adult and I never remember having a harness as a kid.
Click to expand...

I went to one like that in Bath, in Walcot - no harnesses, and you ended up on an old mattress :D

and concrete play areas, had a fight with a friend on the top of a slide - he fell off and broke his ankle :(
 
I remember my school in the 80s - Kings Acre on Kings Avenue - had a big wooden structure to climb on that would give everyone splinters. would never be aloud now.
 
There used to be a really huge and dangerous Adventure Playground in Loughborough Park in the early 90s. Made my eyes water just looking at it from the pavement !
 
The adventure playgroung at the Cathall Estate in Leytonstone was amazing in the late '70s. These days it just wouldn't be allowed due to how fucking dangerous it was.

Big steep wooden plank wide slide, about 25ft high in which you'd slide down it kneeeling in plastic bread crates. Nails and splinters everywhere.

Big wooden witch's hat, with a telegraph pole for the centre, more splinters and nails everywhere.

Slide with metal rollers which you went down on an old plank.

Some sort of thing where you had a bent bit of iron which you used to slide down some long thick cable. You started that one at about 20ft up.

It's amazing there weren't constant injuries and death. :D


watermark.php


This is the only image I can find, before the 'rides' were built.
 
_pH_ said:
A lot of the play equipment back then was made by Wicksteed who are still in the business and might be worth contacting for old catalogues etc.
Click to expand...

yes I'm in the process of trying to get something like that from them. They seem to have a bit of a monopoly on playground equipment!

Thanks for your replies everyone.

:D
 
My eldest was born in 1990 and while she was growing up it was just about possible to find playgrounds where you could actually still have a bit of fun. Now they're so safe and tame nobody over five can get much enjoyment out of them. Also, the rubber matting they put under swings leads to brain damage, same as gloves for boxing. Political correctness gone mad I tells ya!
Anyone remember those big long planks of wood about six kids could sit on with solid metal hinged rods either end. A big kid could get a smaller one to bang his head on the top. There was also the mushroom where you hung on underneath and bigger kids span it round till you flew off. Such such were the joys.
 
Anyone else remember those great big fucking cast iron rocking horses they used to have in playgrounds, the ones that would really go up and down a fair way. A kid at our school had his ankle smashed under one of those. :eek:
 
Anyone remember the climbing frame-cum-sculpture that used to be in the shadow of the Solon New Road tower block? Its plinth is still there, but it had to be removed because it was full of wee.
 
If you want to know more about the history of Adventure Playgrounds, find out about Lady Allen of Hurtwood (originally Marjorie Allen, her husband was a Labour Life Peer). She started the first adventure playground in the UK in Lollard Street, Kennington.
 
Brockwell Park playground was my local one too but a bit earlier than that- late 60s and 70s. The roundabout was different then, with wooden seats. There was also one of the lethal cast iron rocking horses, a green and red seesaw, swings and a witches umbrella. The slide that I used was ony replaced in the mid 1990s. The sandpit was disgusting!
 
I used to take my kid to the Windmill playground; all I really remember was a play-house type structure with various slides, nets, etc, that you could clamber about on.
 
Global Stoner said:
Ariel runways/Zip lines you had to hang on to real tight :D

Worked on them as an adult and I never remember having a harness as a kid.
Click to expand...

They've just built a new one near me....no harness either?? :hmm:

Kennington Play Project is still pretty old and wooden and dangerous looking lol.

Google images for 'dangerous playgrounds' is pretty funny :D
 
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