Here Be Treasure (part3)

This is all taken from Alpine Sports Newsletter 5 (1980ish)...

"EXETER
One un-rad council facility in Heavitree but dedicated skaters who used to do things like travel up to Thunder virtually every week (or so it seemed)

FLEET
Free park made out of Architrac modules: fibreglass/concrete. Two squared bowls with emminentley grindable lip. The only problem is that the place is very hard to find. It's actually in the grounds of the cricket club. Be persistent.
( this was one of my favourite skateparks ever, happy days)

FRASERBURGH
Our most northerly facility to date is a small mellow council park featuring a banked freestyle area and a curved halfpipe running into an 8' deep bowl. One unique feature is a 2m full pipe to shelter from the rain in or to use as a changing room. The park is opposite the Precision Pneumatics factory so if you ask anyone for "the toolies" they'll give you directions.

GIILINGHAM
The Black Lion Skatepark
The best Skateparks Construction park built to date. Commercial/still open/telephone now working again. Very highly recommended.

GLASGOW
Kelvingrove. This council park is a supervised one and is therefore a bit more interesting than many. It is currently Scotlands number one park but is not up to the standard of some of the commercial parks elsewhere. Recommended nevertheless.
Quarrieknowe Street (parkhead district) Radical banking, take your own brush
Helenslea Park Opening late summer. Halfpipe, bowl, freestyle area, Council/free/unsupervised = mellow

HARROW
Solid Surf Skatepark behind the leisure centre in Christchurch Avenue. Highly recommended park. Competing with Guildford as the best free skate going and currently winning because of the lack of hassle associated. No forbidding notice on the fence. No fence (in places). Although the commercial future of Harrow doesn't look very good again the skating present is excellent. The Harrow Boyz have given up propping up our counter and are now keeping their park skateable in the face of opposition from muddy wheeled bikers. Definitely worth a visit.

It now seems unlikely that Harrow will re-open as a commercial park. The Rolling Thunder management seem to have given up their attempt to re-open the park in the face of protracted and frustrating negotiations combined with repeated attacks on the clubhouse by vandals.
The Harrow Boyz have taken matters into their own hands instead and have continued to clean the place up so that now only the snake-run is full of water (nothing changes) Action still centres on the pool and the halfpipe and there is obviously now no admission charge
The rather short sighted view at the park is that the collapse of negotiations is a good thing since they are now able to run "their" park for themselves. Nobody seems to appreciate that the local authorities can be absolutely blind to the fact that the park is well used by lots of skaters but notice every time there is another attack on the clubhouse by vandals. As long as they can dismiss the park as a dangerous eyesore and ignore the fact that hundreds of people still use the park, more than ever now it's free, the future of Harrow will remain in doubt"

blimey even more to come....