Dickens World
Dickens World is a themed attraction located at Chatham Dockyard in the English county of Kent. Privately funded, it cost £62 million to create, and was opened to the public on 25 May 2007.
The concept
It is based around the life of author Charles Dickens, briefly a resident of Chatham as a child and who, as an adult, lived at Gads Hill Place in nearby Higham. Many of the locations and characters in his novels are based on buildings, places and people of the Medway Towns; for example Holcombe Manor was the inspiration for Dingley Dell, the house in Pickwick Papers.[1]
Although Dickens World is often referred to as a theme park, this is a misconception, given that the attraction is more about recreating a Victorian atmosphere for the experience of Dickens' world, rather than rides. [2]
Despite this, the attraction has been heavily promoted as containing Europe’s longest indoors dark ride, the "Great Expectations" log flume. Other attractions include the Haunted House of Ebenezer Scrooge, a Victorian school room, a 4D high definition cinema show, "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters", a themed bar and restaurant, and Fagin’s Den, a play area. There are also mockup Dickensian-style London buildings around a central square, populated with sundry costumed characters from Dickens' works.[3]
Premature opening
However, upon the grand opening of Dickens World, visitors quickly noted that several advertised features were either incomplete or inoperational, including the "Britannia Theatre" (incorporating a state-of-the-art animatronic show), and a "Dickensian Shopping Mall". Many of the earliest visitor reports following the attraction's opening were negative, often stating that although the site was impressive to look at, it was lacking in working features and appeared to have been opened before it was finished.[4] Construction work continued nightly until early August 2007, at which point the "Britannia Theatre" and animatronic show opened to the public, completing the attraction.