The Corkscrew: Alton Towers' First Ever Rollercoaster, and Why a Piece of It Still Stands in the Entrance Plaza

Find out more about the corkscrew rollercoaster

Walk past the entrance plaza at Alton Towers today, and there's a good chance you'll pass directly beneath a genuine piece of theme park history without ever realising it. A dark blue, gold-supported loop of steel track, mounted as a centrepiece near the front of the park, isn't decoration — it's a real, physical fragment of the Corkscrew, the very first rollercoaster Alton Towers ever built, and arguably the single ride most responsible for turning the historic estate into the theme park it is today.

The Ride That Started Everything

The Corkscrew opened on 4th April 1980, and its significance genuinely can't be overstated. It wasn't simply Alton Towers' first rollercoaster — it was the UK's first full-circuit rollercoaster to feature two inversions, a genuinely groundbreaking attraction for British theme parks at the time, and the centrepiece investment behind the park's very first season as a modern theme park.

The idea originated with John Broome, one of Alton Towers' original directors, who in 1979 set out specifically to install a flagship attraction unique to the UK — something that would establish the park as a genuine benchmark for thrills within the domestic theme park industry, rather than simply following what other operators were already doing. Broome had heard about a new generation of rollercoaster being built by Dutch manufacturer Vekoma, marketed as "Corkscrew with Bayerncurve," which had already opened to considerable crowds at Holiday Park in Germany and Walibi Belgium. Bringing that same ride concept to Staffordshire would prove to be one of the most consequential decisions in the park's entire history.

The Corkscrew was designed by Werner Stengel — a name that would go on to become one of the most significant figures in rollercoaster engineering history, later working alongside John Wardley on Nemesis itself — and cost £1.25 million to build, a genuinely substantial investment for the time. The finished ride stood 23 metres tall, ran across 731 metres of track, reached speeds of up to 40mph, and delivered its signature moment through two consecutive corkscrew inversions, a genuinely novel sensation for UK visitors who'd never experienced anything like it at a British theme park before.

Crowds Beyond Anything the Park Had Seen

The Corkscrew's opening season delivered results that genuinely reshaped Alton Towers' trajectory as a business. During its first few months of operation, waits of five to six hours were reportedly common, and the park was sometimes forced to close its gates early simply to avoid being overwhelmed by the volume of guests arriving specifically to ride it. According to the park's own historical account, the Corkscrew's popularity literally doubled Alton Towers' attendance within just a couple of years of opening — a genuinely staggering commercial impact for a single ride to deliver, and one that fundamentally validated the strategy of investing in headline thrill attractions that would go on to define the park's identity for the next four and a half decades.

A New Prehistoric Identity in 1999

The Corkscrew's physical setting changed significantly partway through its lifespan. In 1999, the surrounding area — previously known as Festival Park — was reimagined as Ug Land, a comically themed prehistoric zone built around Stone Age imagery, complete with mastodon tusks, midway games, and rockwork scattered throughout. The Corkscrew itself was folded directly into this new theming, its queue line routed past a dinosaur skeleton, its trains repainted, and its track recoloured to a bone-like yellow — giving what was, by that point, already a nearly two-decade-old ride a genuinely fresh visual identity to carry it into a new era, even as the underlying hardware remained fundamentally unchanged.

A Ride That Aged, Rather Than a Ride That Improved

It's worth being honest about the Corkscrew's reputation in its later years, rather than remembering it purely through rose-tinted nostalgia. Even fans who genuinely loved the ride consistently described it as rough — a characteristic that became more pronounced as the years went on, rather than less. New trains, sourced from Vekoma, were introduced at some point during the 1990s specifically in an attempt to address this roughness, but by most accounts, the underlying issue was never fully resolved. One detailed personal recollection from a visitor who first rode the Corkscrew in 1992 described it plainly: fast, thrilling, and intense, but also genuinely bumpy — a trait that would remain a consistent thread in guest feedback for the rest of the ride's operational life.

Sharing Space With Its Own Successor

In a genuinely poignant twist, the Corkscrew ended up sharing its home in Ug Land with the very ride that represented the next generation of Alton Towers thrill engineering. Rita: Queen of Speed opened in 2005, built directly alongside the ageing Corkscrew, and the two rides coexisted in the same zone for roughly three years. A small but genuinely fascinating architectural detail survives from this period: Rita's first brake run supports were specifically designed to straddle over one of the Corkscrew's turns into its station, meaning the newer ride was quite literally built around the older one — and the resulting gap, with its now-vacant space beneath, can reportedly still be seen at the site today, a quiet physical reminder of a ride that no longer exists.

The End of the Line

By 2008, persistent rumours had begun circulating that the Corkscrew's days were numbered, driven largely by the simple reality that the ride's hardware was reaching the end of its serviceable mechanical life after 28 years of continuous operation. In October 2008, Alton Towers confirmed those rumours officially: the Corkscrew would close at the end of that season, making way for a new coaster — codenamed Secret Weapon 6, and eventually opening in 2010 as Th13teen.

On 9th November 2008, having carried an estimated 43.5 million riders across its lifetime, Alton Towers marked the occasion with a dedicated farewell event, in which the Corkscrew completed one final, ceremonial circuit of its track before closing for good. It's genuinely worth pausing on that ridership figure — 43.5 million people, across a single ride, over 28 years, is a scale of cultural impact very few individual attractions anywhere ever achieve.

What Actually Happened to the Physical Ride

Here's where the Corkscrew's story takes a genuinely interesting turn, because unlike many retired rides that simply vanish into scrap metal, several distinct pieces of the Corkscrew found their way to entirely different afterlives.

The ride's signature double corkscrew inversion section — the most visually iconic part of the entire structure — was deliberately preserved rather than scrapped. Repainted in dark blue with gold supports, it was relocated to the front of the park, where it stands today as a genuine centrepiece over the entrance plaza, accompanied by a plaque honouring the ride and detailing its history for any visitor who takes the time to stop and read it.

The ride's trains met a different fate entirely. Rather than the front car ending its life quietly, it was listed on eBay specifically to raise money for charity, eventually selling on 15th December 2008 for £7,200 — a genuinely remarkable price for a single rollercoaster car, and a fitting way for a ride that had generated so much joy for so many visitors to give something back on its way out. The remainder of the trains were sent to Heide Park, another Merlin-operated park in Germany, where they were repurposed for that park's own Big Loop rollercoaster. Whatever remained after these two pieces were accounted for was scrapped, bringing a genuinely thorough, multi-destination end to a single ride's physical existence.

The Site Today

The Corkscrew's former location, once part of Ug Land, now sits within what's known as Dark Forest — home to Th13teen, the very ride that directly replaced it, continuing a pattern common throughout Alton Towers' history of new headline coasters rising on the exact ground their predecessors once occupied. Ug Land itself, somewhat strangely, outlived the Corkscrew's removal by several years, left for a period with only Rita as its remaining anchor attraction before the zone was eventually folded into the wider redevelopment that produced today's Dark Forest identity.

Why This Story Still Matters

It's worth understanding why the Corkscrew deserves this level of attention, decades after its removal, rather than being treated as simple nostalgic trivia. Enthusiast community discussion has consistently described the ride in genuinely foundational terms — the coaster that put Alton Towers on the map, and one without which the park's entire subsequent trajectory toward becoming the UK's leading thrill destination might never have unfolded the way it did. The Corkscrew wasn't simply Alton Towers' first rollercoaster; it was proof of concept for an entire business strategy — that a single, genuinely groundbreaking headline attraction could transform visitor numbers and establish a lasting reputation, a lesson the park has returned to again and again across every subsequent Secret Weapon project, from Nemesis through to Nemesis Reborn and beyond.

For any visitor who's ever wondered why a strange loop of blue-and-gold track sits near the park's entrance, the answer is a genuinely rich piece of history: 28 years of service, an estimated 43.5 million riders, a role in literally doubling the park's attendance in its earliest years, and a legacy that quietly shaped the design philosophy behind nearly every major coaster Alton Towers has built since.

Quick Reference: The Corkscrew at Alton Towers

• Opened: 4th April 1980 — Alton Towers' first ever rollercoaster, and the UK's first full-circuit coaster with two inversions
• Cost: £1.25 million; designed by Werner Stengel, built by Vekoma
• Original impact: 5–6 hour queues in its opening months; reportedly doubled park attendance within a couple of years
• Retheme: Integrated into the new prehistoric Ug Land zone in 1999, complete with dinosaur skeleton queue theming
• Reputation: Consistently described as thrilling but genuinely rough, a trait new trains in the 1990s didn't fully resolve
• Closed: 9th November 2008, after 28 years and an estimated 43.5 million riders, to make way for Th13teen
• What survived: The double corkscrew inversion section, repainted and relocated to the entrance plaza with a commemorative plaque; the front car sold on eBay for £7,200 for charity; remaining trains sent to Heide Park's Big Loop coaster
• Where it stood: The former Ug Land site is now part of Dark Forest, home to Th13teen, its direct successor