Southsea Skatepark

The site on Southsea seafront started life as a bandstand in 1928. In the 1930s a paved area went in around it for dancing and roller skating, and after the war it grew into a busy roller rink and roller hockey venue, with stands on three sides and the local roller hockey club running it for the council.

Skateboarding hit Portsmouth's streets in the late 1970s, and local skaters, including the Dread City crew, pushed for somewhere to ride. Concrete bowls and runs were built on part of the rink, and the skatepark opened in 1978, with June the usual month given. American pro Tony Alva came over and skated with the locals at the opening. The same builders also put in the much smaller Spinny Bowl over the water in Gosport.

Unlike most parks of its time, Southsea never shut. In the late 1980s it was a centre of the second boom. Its vert ramp became famous, local pros Barry and Mark Abrook, Gary Lee and Ian Harper turned up in the magazines, and Powell Peralta's Bones Brigade, including Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain and Steve Caballero, visited more than once. The Abrook brothers, then riding for Zorlac, ran the Shut Up and Skate vert contests through the late 80s and early 90s.

BMX was part of the park's story from the early 1980s, and a concrete pool was added in the early 1990s. The park's own history says Dave Mirra set a world record for the highest air there in 1993 at a contest filmed for Record Breakers. Inline skaters and then scooter riders followed, and Olympic BMX bronze medallist Declan Brooks came up through the park.

In the mid-2000s the council proposed opening the park only in summer. Supporters set up a not-for-profit company, which became a charity, and on 1 April 2011 it took over the park on a 60-year lease. Since 2016 it has paid its own way, run by volunteer trustees with a manager and volunteer staff.

Researchers count Southsea among only a handful of large 1970s parks left anywhere. Volunteers have restored the original Spoon Bowl to its 1978 shape, a new vert ramp went in in 2016, and the same year Shut Up and Skate came back as part of the UK vert series with the Abrooks' blessing. The park marked its 40th birthday in June 2018.