Hobs Pit

Hobs Pit was a haunted mine themed dark ride which operated at Pleasurewood Hills between 2013 and 2016.

For opening the ride was marketed as "one of the UK's scariest attractions", with the horror and scares ramped up with the use of live actors throughout the seemingly abandoned mine. The park's marketing team even managed to rope in the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) to give Hobs Pit a 12A rating.

Hobs Pit was a retheme of Pleasurewood Hills' previous much more child friendly but aging Fairytale Fantasy dark ride, using the existing Supercar Leisure ride system and adding a new storyline, theming and effects - many of which were designed by the park's resident magician Sean Alexander in consultation with Hollywood special effects designer Rob Ostir.

Both the theming and effects were nicely done and featured a range of projections, special lighting, videos, smells, sudden noises and Pepper's Ghost effects. These really enhanced the spooky atmosphere, which of course was made the more terrifying by the live actors who, dressed as various mine characters, were experts at creating jump scares as ride vehicles came past them.

After being met at the entrance by a disturbing looking miner, visitors were directed through a dark tunnel into the heart of the mine, with more miners "helping" them along the path. Following this initial walkthrough section and accompanying preshow scene, riders boarded four seater mine carts for the rest of their journey - now trapped inside the mine with the ghostly Hob himself ... and the scare actors lurking in the darkness.

Hobs Pit's opening was a great success, creating a real buzz around the UK's theme park enthusiast community and attracting plenty of press attention too. While the 12A rating gimmick got Hobs Pit a lot of column inches in the newspapers, the ride was not usually really warranting of it ... unless visitors took a ride during the park's Halloween where things were ramped up a few notches with the addition of extra live actors.

In later seasons live actors were less present, especially during off-peak days, and without them Hobs Pit was much more a standard ghost train style dark ride. With the park refocussing increasingly toward a family market, it fitted less well into their overall offering leading to its closure in 2016. It was replaced by Rootin Tootin Target Trail, an interactive laser gun shooting dark ride which opened in 2017.

Hobs Pit, though, is well remembered by many who rode it: memories which stand as testament to the ambition of Pleasurewood Hills' team to create something much more than a standard dark ride, a success far beyond what it should have been given the tiny budget of a small regional theme park.

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