please empty your brain below

What is an "attraction". Whilst I would regard the Science Museum, V&A and other large museums as attractions is something like the tiny Twickenham Museum an "attraction". For me it is just a place to go to to research old books on the town.
It is a pity that several large visitor "attractions" are not listed. I could not find Wembley stadium,(or Lords Cricket ground) but Twickenham and Chelsea stadiums are listed within London. I feel sure Wembley would get more visitors than Twickenham.
Thanks for bringing the listings to us dg but it would be nicer to have one where all venues are listed.
There will be a lot of interesting changes at Greenwich when the 2012 figures are published. The newly opened Cutty Sark should be high up - but the Royal Observatory will be a lot down as it had been closed for many weeks for the performing horses.
ALso the National Maritime Museum will be down despite the Royal Thames exhibition as a lot of the museum is closed for the summer for the same reason. Perhaps they should include an additional free attraction - the viewing gallery to the Olympic Park at the top of John Lewis in Westfield (complete with souvenir shop, toilets and a cafe on the same floor)
No Legoland, Thorpe Park, Alton Towers, Blackpool Pleasure Beach....
I can't imagine that anyone from outside the borough and its neighbours would ever visit Carew Manor or Little Holland House (which is way more interesting than a hundred year old house in suburbia should be). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed having a look around them, but I don't think I'd have bothered if they weren't walking distance from my front door.
Stokes croft is probably this building:

http://www.imagesofengland.org.uk/Details/default.aspx?pid=2&id=354647

but there's even a street of the same name in Bristol...
Unless I'm being spectacularly dim, I can't see the London Transport Museum anywhere. Surely that should be in? Did you miss it, did I miss it or did they?
A quick spot of googling gave me the Themed Entertainment Association's 2011 report (http://www.teaconnect.org/pdf/2011Report.pdf), which includes visitor numbers for UK theme parks:

Alton Towers: 2.7m
Legoland Windsor: 1.9m
Thorpe Park: 1.9m

(they were the 9th, 10th and 11th most visited theme parks in Europe, respectively)

I couldn't find any 2011 numbers for Blackpool Pleasure Beach, but wikipedia seems to reckon they had 5.5m visitors in 2007.

For comparison, the top two most visited theme parks in Europe were Disneyland Park at Disneyland Paris (11m) and Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris (4.7m).

It wouldn't surprise me if Disneyland Paris was the top attraction of any kind in Europe. The Louvre is the most visited museum in the world and that had 8.8m visitors in 2011.


Another interesting thing from the TEA report is that Disneyland Park in Disneyland Paris is the 5th most visited theme park in the world, after:
Walt Disney Studios, Orlando (17.1m)
Disneyland, California (16.1m)
Tokyo Disneyland, Japan (14m)
Tokyo Disney Sea, Japan (11.9m)

The top non-Disney park is only 9th (Universal Studios Japan, 8.5m)
the first paragraph points out that the survey had only a 27% response rate, which is perhaps average, if the organisations not shown didn't supply figures no comparisons can be made. I do agree they would have been interesting, if available.
Oops, it is me who's being dim. Just noticed the reference to the London Transport Museum in DG's introduction. Will teach me to read the background properly before jumping straight to the figures...
As a Greenwich resident - Interesting that the (free) Old Royal Naval College seems to have benefited from the decision to charge at the Royal Observatory, but that the Greenwich totals are down when combined (ORNC, Obervatory, National Maritime Museum).

Given that the Observatory is again competing with the Cutty Sark for money, I fancy its visitor numbers will fall again next year, unless it reverts to free entry.
Walt Disney Studios, Orlando (17.1m) seems a lot, but doesn't Selfridges get 20m people through its doors a year, or am I imagining things...
Stokescroft in Gloucestershire is likely have provided figures in relation to visits permitted because it is a tax-exempt heritage asset - in other words in return for a Capital Gains Tax or Inheritance Tax exemption, the owner is legally obliged to provide public access upon request.

The law is complex, the tax position even more so, but usefully a database (together with a PDF about the exemptions, if you're really interested) is maintained at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/heritage/data.htm

For Stokescroft, the database records that it is a 17th century building now used as a solicitor's office; access is available on Wednesday afternoons from 2-4pm by prior appointment.

Some tax-exempt properties are open to the public anyway, others that are larger may have limited (and sometimes unpublicised) opening seasons to meet their obligations - there's one near me in Worcestershire that is open for about ten Sunday afternoons from January to March, not the time of year that one expects stately homes to be open. However when I visited I have to say they did a very good job with an informative tour, which represented fair value for money (the terms of tax exemption may include a reasonable charge for access).

Some smaller properties, or properties where access is to a tax-exempt work of art rather than land or a building, are occasionally reported to be obstructive in providing access, which should be reported to HMRC.










TridentScan | Privacy Policy