This fascinated me: news of a skateboard park in an old public swimming pool in Grantham. It had been there for years, largely ignored by the skateboard establishment. We thought we knew it all, but we didn’t:
GRANTHAM
In issue 81 you asked for more information about Grantham. You’re correct about the ramp being in the old swimming pool. The ramp’s size is 8′ transitions to 8′ high, 16′ wide with 12′ of flat bottom, steel coping and 4′ platforms. The rest of the park consists of 45 banks to walls, no lips, from 4′ high to about 8′ high in a U shape around a central mogul.
The town itself has some good skateable areas such as the leisure centre, with sloping walls, benches, steps, a hand-rail (no run out) and a 50 yard long 60 bank with a curb on top, good for rock slides. Nearby is a garage with two 45 banked hips with curbs on top. Morrisons’ car park has free-standing curbs and painted curbs and walls. B&Q building site with walls and very slidey grindy curbs about 14~.009 high going downhill and round a corner. Much more in town and a private mini-ramp outside of town (invitation only)
Dave Aspland
Grantham
PS 30p per session. Sessions 9.00-12.30, 1.30- sunset. Helmets and pads sometimes required, although not usually at weekends. BMX not usually allowed, but Zach got away with it.
WARNINGUse this list very carefully. Some of these places are far from hot. Use your head: check before making a long journey. Be very careful about places marked ~.069: they aren’t proper skate places as such, people have just written in and said they’re good to skate. And be careful out there: some of the inner city sites may be a bit gnarly if you’re not used to that kind of thing.
If you know somewhere we should list, write and tell us. Tell us where it is, what it is and what you think of it. Don’t forget to include your name, address and telephone number so we can check the details. Write to: Where?
A DIFFERENT WARNING: This list has been compiled over the last ten years. Whilst the information contained in it is freely available to those prepared to invest the effort, the errors are the stuff of art. Some of them have been maturing for years. One day we’ll clean them up, but right now there’s more fun to be had. Use your head: if all you want to do is skate these places you won’t go wrong. Copyright: Deltamere Ltd/ Tim Leighton-Boyce
KEY
+ Worth a visit if you’re passing. ++ Worth a visit if you’re in town. +++ Worth a visit if you’re in the area. ++++ Worth a visit. +++++ Definitely worth a visit. Opening times, cost etc unknown Free, unsupervised ! Not a designated skate place Private – check opening times and cost # Commercial – check opening times and cost
CAPTIONS: Leamington Spa. Chaos
Bath. Solid
Alex Moul. Rad
Attitude check: this is one of those pieces about “space left over” — the way skateboarders occupy the spaces left by the architects and colonise our deserted city spaces. In this case the place was Telford. We’d been lured there by a reader, Peter Medlicott, and made a pilgrimage to inspect yet another new town. My most vivid memory of this was hearing one side of a conversation between Ben Wheeler and his Mum, who presumably thought he was down the road at the South Bank. “Yes, Telford, I think…. Somewhere past Birmingham…”
