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The Water Dodgems & the Big Dipper roller coaster at Butlins Amusement Park, c.1930s.

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In 1932 Billy Butlin converted the site of the Arun windmill, Casino Theatre and surrounding land into a Butlin’s amusement park. It featured, among other attractions, water dodgems, a roller rink and a roller coaster with a façade modelled on the Colosseum in Rome! The park brought record numbers of visitors to the town; on one occasion 2,500 children arrived all in one party! Some local residents disapproved of the site, claiming it had turned Littlehampton into ‘Whoopee city’.