Tucktonia

[chrisredditch]

Tucktonia was a model village in Christchurch which I visited in the 70's.
Its long gone now but I wondered if any other people remember it?

Xchurch.co.uk - Remember Tucktonia

[rossobantam]

Re: Tucktonia

what a fabulous place that seemed...great images in that 2nd brochure link

Why did it close?

[tulip]

Re: Tucktonia

Yes,yes,yes.I do.As someone who went there on holiday every year of my life I went to Tucktonia!!! I went to Matchams too.Anyone ever go there for the demolition derby?

tulip

[Austin Maxi]

Re: Tucktonia

I remember Tucktonia. It was on the opposite side of the main road to the Pontin's Wick Ferry holiday camp. We would usually stay on a camp site near Lymington and visit Christchurch, sometimes have a meal at Wick Ferry and often used to go to Tucktonia as well. It was a shame it closed. Wick Ferry camp has long gone too.

[Emettman]

Re: Tucktonia

That was never my part of the country even for holidays, but I enjoyed model villages as a lad and still do.

A good number have shut in the last twenty years, possibly being seen as "old fashioned" by modern children or their parents.
I know that Bekonscot, one of the two grandaddy's of model villages, has taken in collections of buildings from more than closure.
It is still going strong, and even lets you make your own model village on-line.
http://www.bekonscot.co.uk/

Down in the West Country, World in Miniature (formerly Miniatura Park) closed in 2008, though Babbacombe Model village is flourishing and the model village at Polperro continues, though looking very tired and in need of work the last time I saw it.

[lindino1]

Re: Tucktonia

I remember Tucktonia, my mum has still got a Tucktonia letter holder! My Aunty lives in Bournemouth & we often used to visit there & have fond memories of Wick ferry & Pontins (& until I had a look on wikipedia, I didn't realise the Buckingham Palace model was the same one I saw in Merrivale Model Village in Great Yarmouth - not sure if its still there though). Does anybody else remember the photographer at the entrance where you could dress in old-fashioned clothes & get a sepia photo?

[FLYING SAUCER]

Re: Tucktonia

Dear old Tucktonia, went there for years, anyone remember the huge glass fibre wiggly slide (really tall!) you slid down it and on occasion burnt your bottie, ouch!

The Go Kart track? Pub Shop? Old Time Photographic Studio? The cafe that was fitted out with very 1970's square white painted spindle back seats with black leather squabs?
Then in the late seventies, early eighties the Roll A Penny Machine disapeared and in it's place came the likes of a game called Rear Gunner (big perspex bubble thing that you sat in, joystick contriol, fire at incoming objects - noisy as hell, exciting or what?) I was 15.

3 years ago, we were walking across the Avon Beach, near Christchurch, and my husband found a red disc in the stones, he pulled it out and it said TUCKTONIA - how on earth had it survived? This place has been closed for years! I didn't believe it! Will have to find it out and post it here.

I think that the TUCKTONIA site may well have been sold for housing back in the late 1980s?

[Austin Maxi]

Re: Tucktonia

I was back in Christchurch about a month ago, the Tucktonia site is covered in housing now, and there's a huge new hotel where the main dining hall of the Wick Ferry holiday camp used to stand, and housing on the rest of the site.

[Fearmint]

Re: Tucktonia

Tucktonia featured in a competition in Eagle comic with the winners taking part in the photoshoot for a specially written episode of "the Collector" - this is from issue 33, 6th Nov 1982:

[Fearmint]

Re: Tucktonia

extra page that the forum wouldn't let me include in one post:

[PC66]

Re: Tucktonia

Further along the coast in Sussex was one of our usual holiday spots when I was younger, but I certainly remember one or two trips further west and going to Tucktonia.

[Kaptain_Von]

Re: Tucktonia

I can remember getting taken to Tucktonia on both a school trip at the end of term (one of those where the teachers had long given up trying to impart any knowledge into kids for whom the school summer holidays were looming) and by my parents one summer holiday too. The first time must have been about a year after it opened. The huge slider (Cresta Run?) rings a bell and I remember the train and radio controlled tanks which to a young lad were far more interesting than being dragged around a model village with your parents.

What always amazes me is how short a time it actually existed. It opened in 1976 and closed in 1986 yet thinking back it seems like Tucktonia leaflets were around forever in the 'places to visit' carousel of the local tourist information office and in the rack in the hall of a B&B run by one of my family.

[cmac]

Re: Tucktonia

I remember this place with such great fondness. I absolutely loved my summer holidays staying in Southbourne with relatives and going out round about the area. There are so many things I can vividly remember but possibly not for this page. My favourite part of Tucktonia was the bumper boats, as well as the very steep, so it seemed, slide. As stated , like so many things, it is no more, hardly even a sign of the place. I spoke recently to my old auntie who still stays in Southbourne and we started talking about things, and nothing is still there, well very little anyway shame, but oh the memories of Bournemouth, Boscombe and of course Tucktonia are still as fresh in the mind

[Twocky61]

Re: Tucktonia

Both Tucktonia & Pontins are now housing developments, which is a shame. In fact, also on the old Pontins site is a posh restaurant called 'The Captains Club'. There was also a penny amusement arcade next to Christchurch quay which is now a restaurant.