On its 35th birthday, take a look back at our pictures from the 1989 opening of Center Parcs Elveden Forest
It was the summer of 1989. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was the top film at the box office, Sonia was at number one in the charts and Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister.
It was also the year the second UK Center Parcs opened. Following in the footsteps of the Sherwood holiday village which had opened two years earlier, Elveden Forest complex, near Brandon, Thetford, Mildenhall and Bury St Edmunds, welcomed its first holidaymakers in the summer of 1989.
The site celebrated it 35th birthday last week, so we took a look back through our archives and discovered pictures taken by the Bury Free Press on its opening in August 1989.
While fashions and haircuts may have changed in the past 35 years, some aspects of Center Parcs remain familiar. For example, the Subtropical Swimming Paradise.
One of the most popular elements of the swimming pool – so named because its climate is maintained at a constant subtropical temperature, regardless of the British weather – have always been its water rapids.
Our photographer obviously agreed, capturing many pictures of the parc’s first holidaymakers enjoying the choppy experience.
However, eagle-eyed holidaymakers might notice some changes in the swimming pool since its opening.
The in-pool bar, which can be seen in the wider view photographs, is long gone. So, too, is the seating island in the middle of the main pool. This is now home to cabanas which can be rented by holidaymakers.
Much of the vegetation around the pool and its whirlpools is now mature, while I don’t recall seeing this underwater view window during my trip to Center Parcs last month (although I may be wrong).
Our photographer also went inside one of the villas in 1989, with the archive pictures showing a pared back interior compared with even the most basic of villas today.
From a simple kitchen to a television and log fire, the villas had all the facilities 1989 holidaymakers needed, but perhaps less than the expectations of visitors in 2024.
Meanwhile, hundreds of gleaming bicycles were ready for the first tourists back in 1989 – as pictured here.
One of the most startling changes visitors to Elveden over the past two decades might notice is the original glass-enclosed Parc Plaza pictured here.
Home to restaurants, shops, the Parc Market and the entrance to the Subtropical Swimming Paradise, the Plaza also had streams and lush tropical plants.
In the spring of 2002, the Plaza was all but destroyed by an inferno which could be seen for miles around.
When the parc eventually reopened the plaza had been rebuilt to a different design and was no longer enclosed.
But for some holidaymakers, these Parc Plaza pictures may trigger some happy memories of the original design, its welcoming atmosphere and the year-round protection it offered from the elements.
The history of Center Parcs started in the Netherlands in 1968, spreading to Belgium, France, Germany and arriving in England in 1987, with the opening of the Sherwood holiday village.
It was followed by Elveden in 1989 and Longleat in 1995. In 2001, the Oasis Lakeland holiday village, in Cumbria, was bought by the business and renamed Center Parcs Whinfell Forest.
The Woburn holiday village opened in 2014 and Center Parcs Longford Forest, in Ireland, opened in 2019.
