If your screen does not print after clicking the button above, simply click on FILE in the top left of your browser menu, then click PRINT
Flambards Experience
Flambards Experience
Clodgey Lane,
Helston,
Cornwall TR13 0QA
Tel: 01326 573404
About Flambards Experience
Flambards Experience is a multifaceted family attraction based at Helston in Cornwall, offering ticket holders a superb variety of fairground attractions and museum displays about the way of British life.
The Flambards Experience’s mission statement is to both entertain ticket holders on a family day out to a showground styled after those of yesteryear, and simultaneously take them on a cheery trip down memory lane, from the pastoral past in the shape of a Victorian Village, to our finest hour, with Britain in the Blitz. The Flambards Experience literally has something for everyone and in addition to all the themed rides and attractions, ticket holders have access to a wonderful landscaped garden and the beautiful natural setting in which the Flambards Experience lies.
The Victorian Village area re-creates a community of 150 years or so ago, with a cobbled street from the 19th century laid out in its centre, flanked by period structures including houses, shops and communal buildings. An audio commentary at a nominal extra charge to ticket holders details the history of the Village and highlights the likes of the Wedding Cakes And Fashions Down The Years – 1870 To 1970 exhibit. It lifts the lid on wedding rituals of the not so distant past and how they evolved over the decades, from throwing rice to shoes, and the decoration of the wedding car. Another display looking at embroidery on Victorian and Edwardian dresses is mind-boggling, as is the wedding gown crafted from the silk of a wartime parachute.
Indeed, ticket holders on a family day out to the Flambards Experience can revel in the ingenuity and sheer spirit of their forebears in the Britain In The Blitz exhibit. It scrutinises conditions during the War years across the UK, and details how Luftwaffe bombs rained down on a nightly basis over many of the major cities of the land. For those wishing to see where people hid during air raids, there’s an Anderson shelter, along with a model mother and her children, huddled in the bottom of their garden as the sound of a V-1 Doodlebug cruise missile jets overhead on the way to its target not far down the road. Over the road, a public house’s drinkers stay cheerful despite everything, while a spy in their midst listens for snippets of potentially useful information over a pint, demonstrating the contemporary cautions that Careless Talk Costs Lives and Keep Our Secrets Secret. Ticket holders entering the pub are challenged to identify themselves – or face the consequences! Not something you’ll get on just any family day out!
The Flambards Experience War Gallery additionally celebrates the men and women who gave their lives, limbs and health in the service of the country during World War II and in the many conflicts that raged in the decades after, not least the Falklands War of 1982 and the Gulf War of 1990-91. The Gallery has an array of fascinating memorabilia and images, retelling the stories of those who went overseas, and those who were left behind, including a moving series of letters penned by schoolchildren in Bristol to their teacher. Details about their evacuation from the city are related in heart-rending fashion and exemplify the trials and tribulations inherent to war and its consequences.
The Flambards Experience Target For Tonight exhibit explores its impact further, with ticket holders given the chance to see what it would have been like to fly in a Junkers JU-88 fighter-bomber over Exeter, preparing to unleash its deadly payload on its sleeping inhabitants. In fact, one of the Baedeker raids that took place in May 1942 – so-called because the aerial bombardment apparently focused on cathedral cities listed in a Baedeker tourist guide to Great Britain - saw each German plane deliver 75 tons of high explosives, totalling some 100,000 bombs.
The air war theme is maintained at the Flambards Experience exhibition hall, where the nose section of an Avro Shackleton T4 aeroplane is on show, along with a Swallow swing-wing jet. Additionally, plane spotters can see more than 50 models of early aircraft built up to 1910 – worth the price of the ticket alone for aviation buffs!
Indeed, the Flambards Experience was established in 1976 as the Cornwall Aircraft Park by Lieutenant-Commander Douglas Kingsford Hale, MBE, who aimed to create a family attraction that explored aeronautical themes (and renamed after the 70s TV series about aerial pioneers). That philosophy continues with an exhibit dedicated to Richard Pearse, a Cornishman who designed, built and likely flew his own powered aircraft months before the Wright Brothers’ more famous exploits of 1901 (though a Welsh pioneer had beaten them all by several years!) Furthermore, the family attraction boasts a section of Concorde fuselage that was used for testing during the development of the world’s first supersonic passenger service. Ticket holders can have the thrill of standing in the cockpit of the arrow-nosed plane and entertain the idea of what it must be like to fly at more than twice the speed of sound.
Back on terra firma, the Flambards Experience ornamental gardens are a stunning sight, drawing in horticulturalists from across the country, while the Plant Centre sells a huge range of bedding plants, herbs, hardy perennials, alpines and house plants. With a constant temperature of 20 C maintained it offers a perfect environment for cultivation of banana, orange and lemon trees.
For ticket holders seeking a bit of white-knuckle excitement on their family day out, the Flambards Experience fairground rides are just the ticket. Overseen by the park mascot, Ferdi Flambards, there are themed rides featuring TV and film characters like The Simpsons, Peter Pan and Snoopy, as well as a host of hair-raisers. These include the Hornet Rollercoaster, Canyon River Log Flume, the Cyclocopters, Balloon Race, Extreme Force, Chariot Race, Thunderbolt, Super-rides International, the Rocking Tug and a Swiss Carousel. Younger ticket holders are also well catered for with the Children’s Eye, the Human Cannonball, the Pirate Ship, T-Cups, Animal Express, Carousel and the Space Shuttle.
What’s more, this wide variety of, by turns, thrilling and charming entertainment, is located within the stunning natural environment of Cornwall, with the ocean and rolling moors not a million miles away. The Flambards Experience is also central to many other family destinations and natural wonders, making it the ideal family day out.