Places

Funfair, Clarence Esplanade

Tags: 1928, 1948 Kelly's Street Directory, Amusement Park, Clarence Pier, Custer cars, National Fairground Archive

 ‘The Amusement Park lacks nothing that modern fun-of-the-fair entertainment can provide’

Page from official 1953 Portsmouth and Southsea guide published by the City of Portsmouth

 In 1928 Clarence Pier  had a funfair boasting ‘Custer Cars and skeeball’. Custer cars were very small electric vehicles produced by the Custer Speciality Car Company in Dayton, Ohio USA as an amusement park ride.  More information on the history of Custer cars can be found here. Skeeball was another import from the United States – this time an arcade game in which the player rolls a ball up an incline and tries to get it to fall into holes with different score values.  

By 1933, Clarence Esplanade hosted Butlins Amusement Park, complete with  ‘the Dodgem, All the latest games and novelties’ . Unfortunately, Second World War bombing destroyed the old pier and its pavillion. However the fair continued and ‘Butlins amusement caterers’ are listed in the 1948 Kelly’s Street Directory. By the 1950’s, although the pier was ‘under reconstruction’, Butlins ‘ brightest amusement park on the South Coast’ was open for business daily, from 10am til midnight. In 1958, Billy Manning had taken over the operation of the fair and the company continues to run the popular attraction today.

Information taken from Portsmouth and Southsea Guides and Kelly’s Street Directories held by Portsmouth History Centre. See also the National Fairground Archive based at Sheffield University.

Comments:

“We used to get the bus to go past the seafront to see the lights. The bus was outside where the cinema used to be. I remember the fayre on Portsdown hill and the Southsea Carnival. The Pier was the place to go. They had the Miss Southsea competition down it and other attractions”- Comment submitted by a Portsmouth resident.

“I remember sitting on the beach, wind in my hair, watching the days go by. Sitting on the Ferris Wheel and looking across the sea. Things changed.” – Comment submitted by Jade, a Portsmouth resident.