This delightful boulevard is your gateway to the fantastical world of Alton Towers, with the Towers ruins overlooking the entrance from the other side of the lake.
Food & Drink
- Corner Coffee
- Towers Street Hot Dog
- Towers Street Donuts
- Coca Cola Freestyle
Shops
- Towers Trading Company
Facilities
- Box Office – found on the bottom right of Towers Street, next to Corner Coffee
- Guests Services – found at top right of Towers Street
- Toilets – found by the turnstiles at the top of Towers Street
- Lockers – at the top of Towers Street next to the toilets
- Medical Centre – next to Skyride station to the bottom left of Towers Street
Transportation
At the centre of the street are the park’s iconic Leap Frog Fountains, surrounded by grass islands – perfect for relaxing at the end of a busy day in the park. The street is lined by traditional styled shops and eateries, some of which offer a nod to the resort’s past, opening out at the bottom to beautiful vistas across the lawns with the ruins of the Towers rising in the distance.
Whilst Towers Street has no rides to call its own, it is the transportation hub of the park, with the Monorail station at the top of the street and the Skyride departing from the bottom. The area is also the place to come if shopping is what you’re after, as it is home the the park’s very own megastore, Towers Trading, where they sell everything to do with Alton Towers from clothes to cuddly bears. Towers Trading is also the collection point for any ride photos you have chosen to pick up later, and the purchase point for walkabout photos is located in the tower outside.
As you might expect being the entrance to the park, Towers Street is home to many of the park’s workings, with the Resort Box Office being located here, as well as Guest Services where you can hire children’s buggies as well as get any information you might need about the park.
Towers Street was built for the 1986 season, around the Grand Entrance to the park which had opened the previous season. The street was designed to utilise the spectacular views of the Towers themselves and was something of a homage to the typical entrances of the Disney theme parks, a major influence on the park at the time.
It was originally designed primarily as a shopping precinct at the entrance of the park, with a series of shops running its length selling everything from toys and games, through to fashion and even furniture. The centre of the street was formally laid out with brick flower beds, with Victorian style benches and lampposts running down to the Leap Frog Fountains centrepiece, which in those days were set into small brick ponds which allowed guests to actually walk under the jets and really interact with them.
It was not until 1987, the following season, that the Monorail and Skyride joined the line up, though both fitted in seamlessly, as they had been allowed for in the street’s original design. With these two features in place the street was complete and so remained more or less unchanged for several years, becoming not only the entrance to the park, but also central to the park’s winter opening line up.
When Tussauds took over the park in the early 90s the role of Towers Street within the park changed dramatically as they had vastly different ideas to the previous management. Their vision for the park did not include shopping being an important feature and so in 1992 all the shops down one side of the street closed, becoming office space for the park management instead. This was followed a few years later by all the shops on the other side of the street being combined into Towers Trading as it exists today.
The other major change which occurred during the early 90s is the centre of the street being entirely remodelled, with the brick beds being knocked out to be replaced by the much more naturalistic grass islands we see today. As part of these works the Leap Frog Fountains were all merged into the larger pond and the iconic frogs and lily pads were added.
Since these alterations Towers Street has remained much the same, simply acting as the entrance to the park and so mostly lacking the vibrant atmosphere it had during its earlier days. The only major change to have occurred in recent years was the short-lived addition of the ill-fated YourDay venture, which involved one of the old shop units being redeveloped for the 2007 season. However this unit is now used as the Resort Box Office after Yourday went into administration early in the 2009 season.
Past Areas
This area’s theme has remained largely the same since its creation.
