Following years of bringing laughter and excitement to kids and families alike, the sole remaining relic is a lone clown’s head. Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s iconic Fun House was a mainstay of the amusement park, born from the creative vision of architect Joseph Emberton in the 1930s as part of the park’s modernisation efforts. Within its walls, visitors discovered an array of thrilling attractions , including a moving staircase, a steep slide and a mixing bowl ride. A 1991 article in the West Lancashire Evening Gazette painted a vivid picture of the Fun House in the 1940s, describing it as a “labyrinth of ingenious obstacles”. The article recalled: “Butter barrels threatened to tumble onto those who unsteadily picked their way over stepping stones that wobbled and planks that cake-walked to and fro on the stage.” It also mentioned a cheeky clown with a penchant for mischief, offering a helping hand to ladies, only to leave them struggling to maintain their modesty against jets of compressed air. The Manchester Evening News notes that this prank, which involved blowing skirts up with compressed air – a stunt that wouldn’t fly today – was met with thunderous applause each time, reports Lancs Live . However, the fashion trend of ladies’ slacks later in the decade eventually put an end to this particular prank. The writer fondly remembered the joy of navigating slides and obstacles that sent people tumbling, adding: “The many bumps, bruises and abrasions were a small price to pay for the countless hours of fun enjoyed at the palace for the young at heart.” The building went through several tweaks down the years, even becoming a part of the amusement park’s Pepsi monorail route, which zipped right through the attraction. However, everything changed in 1991 when calamity hit. The towering five-storey structure was utterly razed by a fire, visible for miles around. The inferno erupted late into the night, with flames reaching a staggering 100ft into the air. A pizza delivery bloke was the first to catch sight of it. Mere hours before, employees had been herded out due to a bomb scare, yet after poking around, officials concluded there was nothing dodgy about the outbreak of the fire. A whole host of local kiosks and shops got swallowed up by the flames, while the fairground’s monorail suffered major damage. The legendary laughing clown at the Fun House, a staple image of the joint, was mostly wrecked, but his head somehow made it through unscathed. Margaret Roberts, a local who witnessed the timber and fibreglass-coated edifice disintegrate, remarked, “It was just like a fireball. The whole sky was lit up.” A squad of eighty firefighters hurtled to the site and managed to rein in the fire come dawn. Despite their efforts, the destruction was heartbreaking – the beloved Fun House, a fixture since 1934, couldn’t be salvaged. The total cost of the havoc wreaked by the flames? £10 million. After the inferno, a snapshot showed Pleasure Beach managing director Geoffrey Thompson cradling what remained of the clown head. He staunchly promised that they would build a new attraction from the embers of the Fun House. On these hallowed grounds of the classic Fun House, the thrill-seekers in charge conjured up Valhalla – crowned the globe’s grandest indoor ride and fast becoming a fairground legend. Lizy Brown reminisced: “If you got lost we always went to the laughing clown outside the Fun House. Good memories looking back. That laughing clown was freaky, wasn’t it.” Tammy Barker weighed in with her own shivers: “Freaky then and freaky now. I remember as a kid me and my two younger brothers bawling our eyes out at it.” Frank Duffy confessed: “That’s why I was scared of clowns for years.” Tim Woodburn waxed lyrical about the bygone challenges of the Fun House like “the spinning disc, the rotating barrel, and the wonky moving stairs,” adding cheekily, “Wouldn’t be allowed in today’s nanny society, lol.” And indeed, the History of Blackpool Facebook group is buzzing with folks waxing nostalgic over the Fun House. Jo Warburton recalled: “I loved it in there and remember too the sheer drop of the slide. I think I also remember a moving staircase where each riser you stepped on moved downwards as you stepped on it, and also moving floor plates which moved in opposite directions so with each step forwards you didn’t go anywhere unless you moved faster.” Nostalgia waves were also surfed by Christopher Jackson: “Had great times in here. Absolutely no health and safety but we where fearless as kids in those days.” Ian Gibbons reminisced: “One of my friends came into the Fun House one day with a backpack. She came prepared: drinks, plasters, and cotton wool for the inevitable nose bleed. After that we all started taking first aid stuff into school for her to pack away for the next weekend.” Alison Parry-jones shared her experience: “Used to feel dizzy hours after coming home.” Yet she insisted: “It was great fun.” Throwing it back to less regulated times, Pat Thompson admitted: “Wouldn’t pass health and safety checks these days. Brilliant place to spend a day back in my youth.” Claire Smith sadly revealed: “I was never allowed to go in because my cousin broke her back on the record.” And James Campion recalled a particularly vivid memory: “I was only five but I remember being in this Fun House only because of someone breaking a leg on the barrel thing.”