Tucktonia: the lost model village theme park by the Stour

Tucktonia was a model village and theme park on Stour Road in Christchurch, open from 1976 to 1986. Its main attraction was a miniature Britain, with London's landmarks, lit up at night beside the River Stour. For a decade it drew families from across the country, then it closed and the site became housing.

Many people who grew up in Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole in the late 1970s remember it, and many visitors who arrive now have never heard of it. This is the park's story, pieced together from Dorset Life's history of Tucktonia and the park's Wikipedia entry, with the claims we could not confirm marked as such.

Where was Tucktonia?

Tucktonia stood on Stour Road, on the Christchurch bank of the River Stour near Tuckton Bridge, where Christchurch meets Southbourne. It took up around four acres of a 21-acre leisure complex, Tuckton Park. The spot is a short walk from the Riverside pub and the Tuckton Tea Gardens on the other side of the bridge.

Tuckton itself is an old riverside hamlet, first recorded in the thirteenth century and absorbed into Bournemouth in 1901. Its bridge, built in 1905 from reinforced concrete, is the lowest crossing of the Stour and carried trams in its day. The tea gardens beside it, trading since 1903, are still a good place for a pot of tea by the water.

The Bournemouth Guide's Southbourne area guide covers the neighbourhood today, and its listing for the Riverside at Tuckton is the obvious stop for lunch if you go looking for the site.

Who built Tucktonia and what was in it?

Tucktonia was the idea of Harry Stiller, a former British Formula 3 champion, and its centrepiece was a model landscape called "The Best of Britain in Miniature". Dorset Life reports that he had owned the site since the 1960s, when it was a golf school, and took inspiration from a miniature park in the Netherlands.

According to Dorset Life, the layout was built at 1:24 scale and held more than 200 models. Among them were Buckingham Palace, the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Tower Bridge, Piccadilly Circus, Stonehenge and a Cornish village. Most of the models were built by KLF Ltd, a model-making firm that went on to work on Britannia Park in Derbyshire, according to Wikipedia.

The same magazine gives figures for the build that are hard to check but worth repeating as reported: a cost of around £2 million, two years of work, thousands of tonnes of hardcore and concrete to raise the ground above flood level, and more than 12,000 bulbs to light the models at night. The site was on low ground by the river, so the flood protection at least makes sense.

Around the models grew a small amusement park. The published accounts mention a giant slide known as the Astra Slide, bumper boats, go-karts, crazy golf, an arcade, bars and a miniature steam railway, added around 1980. Coasterpedia, a ride enthusiasts' wiki, lists several more rides that arrived between 1983 and 1985, including a simulator, a scrambler, a carousel and a dark ride.

Why was Tucktonia famous?

Tucktonia was famous for its screen appearances as much as its visitors. BBC's Multi-Coloured Swap Shop broadcast live from the park, the model London appeared in the 1976 spoof Queen Kong, and it featured in the 1985 science fiction film Lifeforce. For a model village, that was an unusual amount of airtime.

The park opened on 23 May 1976, with the comedian Arthur Askey doing the honours. Dorset Life says it drew around half a million visitors a year at its height and welcomed celebrities including Tommy Cooper and Jon Pertwee. We could not find an independent source for the visitor figure, so treat it as the park's own estimate.

For families in the late 1970s it was a new kind of day out on this coast. Before it, a trip to Bournemouth meant the beach, the piers, the gardens and the shows, a story told in our history of Bournemouth.

Why did Tucktonia close?

Tucktonia closed in 1986, after about ten years. No single cause is on record, but the published accounts point to two pressures: bigger theme parks elsewhere, and a failed plan to expand. Both are reported rather than documented, so they are worth reading with care.

Dorset Life links the decline to the rise of Alton Towers, which opened as a theme park in 1980 and changed what families expected from a day out. Wikipedia repeats a rumour that the owners wanted to build a roller coaster at the back of the site and were refused permission by the council, and that the park closed shortly afterwards. We found no council record to confirm it.

After the park closed, the site had a second life as a pub, the Old Colonial, later renamed Bar Max. Those buildings were demolished in 2003 and the land was redeveloped for retirement flats and private homes, according to Wikipedia. Nothing of the park is visible on Stour Road now.

What survives of Tucktonia today?

Little of Tucktonia survives, but the miniature railway does. It moved to Moors Valley Country Park near Ringwood, where Dorset Life reports it still runs, so a ride there is the closest you can get to the park today. Most of the models were lost later in a warehouse fire in Verwood.

One model is said to have escaped. Dorset Life's account says the Buckingham Palace model survived the fire and went on show at Wimborne Model Town until 2002, then moved to Merivale Model Village in Great Yarmouth. We have not been able to confirm whether it is still on display there, so check with the attraction before you make the trip.

Wimborne Model Town, a model of the town as it was in the 1950s, still opens to visitors in season. It is about half an hour from Bournemouth and gives a sense of what a British model village is like.

The rest lives on in photographs and memories. Collections of snapshots from the 1970s and 1980s are shared online, and the Swap Shop broadcasts turn up in television archives.

Visiting the area now

The riverside around the old site is still worth an afternoon. Walk from Tuckton Bridge along the Stour, stop at the tea gardens, and carry on towards Christchurch Quay and the Priory, or turn south to the beach at Southbourne.

Our guide to things to do in Christchurch covers the Priory, the Quay and Mudeford, and the Bournemouth Guide's Christchurch page plans a full day out. For the coast, our guide to Southbourne beach and the Guide's listing for Hengistbury Head are the places to start. The Bournemouth and Christchurch cycle routes link the lot.

If you are coming to explore the eastern side of the conurbation, the serviced apartments near Christchurch page explains how our Bournemouth apartments work as a base, with Christchurch about ten minutes away by train.