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Shireland,
Circa 1988
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Through several e-mails with
Stormy, I have surmised that Shireland must have been a very
different place when it opened in 1988 then after it re-opened
in 1991. Most of the attractions like buildings, "Dragonwood"
and "The Magic of Kids" must have been added
after the park t closed at the end of the 1988 season and
before it re-opened nearly 3 years later. That
might have explained why the park was closed for so long.
Again, according to Stormy,
the original Shireland was all tents. That flies in the
face of everything that I thought I knew about it. I
thought that the buildings shown in my various web pages were
there as long as the park was there. The original look
truly had more of a county fair-type atmosphere.
Stormy recalls Shireland
being laid out like this:
"...You entered into
an area with fake horses in
armor - saw the artificial hitch with fake horses - then got
to walk past a bunch of stalls with the horses facing away
from you (you got to
look at horse butts) then you went to the tents where they
would have the girls washing and grooming the horses - then
you got to our big top. After that there was a food
court and an area where they showed
the movies"
Through it all, I am
convinced that Thomas Smrt could not, nor did not
conceive, plan and develop this park on his own.
If you worked at Shireland and/or have any
"behind-the-scenes" knowledge, please
contact me.
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Shireland,
during better times.
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I am sure
Smrt had a huge art department to generated stuff like this.
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Super Shire
was a shire horse with super powers, I guess, who, along with
his companion, Jimmy, solved crimes.
(Believe me, I couldn't make that up!).
This was the
fodor for comic books that Smrt created and allegedly send out
- to whom, I am not sure.
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What clowns,
cannons, horses and knights have to do with each other, I am
not sure!
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It seems as
though it cost a lot of money to get in, but I don't remember.
Mind you, these are 1988 dollars. Other people told me
you and to pay to park, too.
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I think the
smaller tents in the foreground were where 4 movies were
shown. One was about how Thomas Smrt donated dozens of
horses to the U.S. Army. |
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| Shireland
must have been a great place to work if you were a high
school/college-aged kid. Likewise, Smrt must have
employed most of the kids in that end of the state. |
The Master of
Ceremony
(the man in the white suit,
not the stuffed horse)
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Was
Shireland's demise due to Smrt's volatile nature or the
inability to put bums on seats? Or both? |
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| Not
everyone who worked there were kids. Stormy thought that
the clowns and some of the riders were professionals, maybe
even from the circus. |
Shire Horses
were used in Medieval Times apparently.
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Shireland
was billed as "..an attraction honoring
(italics added)...The Great English Shire (horse)".
Since when do we honor horses? |
