Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre facts for kids
View of the Sports Centre across the rowing lake
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| Location | Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham |
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| Opened | 1971 |
Holme Pierrepont Country Park, home of The National Water Sports Centre is a super cool place for sports and fun! It's located in a small village called Holme Pierrepont, close to Nottingham, England. You can find it right by the River Trent. This park is used for many different sports, especially water sports. It has been updated with new and improved facilities over the years.
The park is managed by a company called Serco, working with Nottinghamshire County Council. It used to be one of England's main National Sports Centres.
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A Look Back: The Park's History
The Holme Pierrepont centre was built between 1970 and 1971. Workers had to dig out a huge amount of earth from an old gravel pit to create the lakes. When it opened in 1971, it quickly became famous. It even won an award in 1972 for its design and how it fit into nature. Because of this, it was chosen to host the very first National Rowing Championships that same year.
For a long time, until 2009, the centre was run by Sport England. But then, Nottinghamshire County Council took back control. This happened because of new plans for the 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2013, a new team from Serco Leisure started managing the park. They signed a 21-year agreement to keep the facilities great and make them even better.
Awesome Activities and Facilities
Holme Pierrepont Country Park is huge, covering about 270 acres (1.1 square kilometers) of beautiful parkland. It offers tons of activities both on water and on land. The centre has three main water areas:
- Regatta Lake: This is a 2,000-meter long lake perfect for rowing races. It has six lanes for rowing or nine lanes for fast Sprint Kayak races.
- White Water Course: A 700-meter course designed for exciting Canoe slalom events.
- Open Water Lagoon: This area is great for swimming in open water and playing Canoe polo.
Outdoor Adventure Park: Fun for Everyone
The Outdoor Adventure Park used to be called the Family Fun Park. It opened in 2014 and is located in the main Country Park area. It's packed with fun things to do:
- Sky Trail High Ropes: An exciting course high above the ground.
- Mini Golf: A small golf course for all ages.
- Children's Play Area: A safe and fun space for younger kids.
- Country Park Café: A place to grab a snack or drink.
Sky Trail and Sky Tykes: Reach for the Sky
The Sky Trail is a challenging high ropes course. You can test your balance and strength by crossing different obstacles. The best part is you stay safely attached the whole time! For younger adventurers, there's Sky Tykes, a smaller version of the course.
Mini Golf: Putt Your Way to Fun
Right below the Sky Trail, you'll find a 9-hole mini golf course. Each hole gets a little trickier than the last, making it a fun challenge for everyone.
Gyms: Stay Fit and Strong
The park has two modern gyms that opened in 2014. One gym has 60 exercise stations and looks out over the beautiful Regatta Lake. The other is a Strength and Conditioning gym, perfect for serious training. Both gyms have lots of equipment, including:
- New Life Fitness machines
- Weights and resistance equipment
- Power plates for quick workouts
- Training bikes and a kayak simulator
- Squat racks and lifting platforms
Accommodation: Stay and Play
If you want to stay longer, Holme Pierrepont has great places to sleep. The main Lakeside building has 54 updated rooms, each with its own bathroom. There's also a cozy cottage called The Elms, which can sleep up to 11 people. For a more outdoorsy feel, there's an 18-acre campsite. You can bring your own tent or caravan, or try staying in one of the cool tipis or wooden camping arches!
Meeting Spaces: Learn and Grow
The centre also has rooms for meetings and conferences. There are four updated rooms, with the largest one able to hold up to 150 people. They also offer fun team-building activities to go along with their meeting packages.
A special sports science and medicine centre is also on site. It helps athletes with things like physiology (how the body works), recovering from injuries, and testing their fitness.
The Exciting Whitewater Course
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| About | |
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| Locale | Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham |
| Coordinates | 52°56′45″N 1°05′25″W / 52.9458°N 1.0903°W |
| Main shape | linear |
| Water source | River Trent |
| Canoe lift | No |
| Construction | 1986 |
| Date upgraded | 2009 |
| Stats | |
| Length | 700 m (2,300 ft) |
| Drop | 4 m (13 ft) |
| Flowrate | 16–25 m3/s (570–880 cu ft/s) |
| http://www.nwscnotts.com/ | |
The whitewater course at Holme Pierrepont is a major spot for whitewater rafting and kayaking in England. It hosts big international events for slalom, freestyle, and wild water racing. One of the biggest events is the National Student Rodeo, which is the largest freestyle kayaking event in the world! This event often gets featured in local news and magazines like Canoe & Kayak UK.
Where is the Whitewater Course?
You can find the whitewater course between a weir (a small dam) on the River Trent and the main regatta lake.
How the Course Was Built
The course was built in 1986, mostly using concrete. It's about 700 meters long and drops just over 4 meters in height. This drop creates exciting whitewater rapids, which are rated as Grade 3 on the International Scale of River Difficulty. The best part is that the course uses gravity to get its water from the River Trent, so it doesn't need electricity to run, making it quite cheap to operate.
Because of how it's designed, swimming through this course is safer than many other places. It has deep channels and not many big obstacles hidden underwater. The amount of water flowing through the course changes depending on rainfall and how the canal is used. However, because the Trent has a large catchment area, flows between 16 and 25 cubic meters per second are common. If the river levels get too high, the course can start to flood from the bottom. For safety, the whitewater course is open to the public only up to a certain river level.
The course got a big update in 2009. Some of the old concrete obstacles were removed, and new, movable plastic blocks called Omniflots were added. These help change the rapids for different events.
Sports You Can Do Here
Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre is the main home for British Canoeing. This is the national group that looks after canoeing and kayaking in the UK, and their main office is right here!
The Holme Pierrepont Canoe Club offers lessons on both the calm lake and the exciting whitewater course. The course is also used for important water safety and rescue training. Besides canoeing, you can enjoy rafting, playboating, slalom, kayaking, and wild water racing.
One of the most important sports at the centre is rowing. The 2000-meter multi-lane rowing lake is perfect for this. The centre has hosted huge events like the World Rowing Junior Championships in 1973 and the World Rowing Championships in 1975 and 1986. Many UK rowing competitions also happen here. Safety on the water is handled by the local lifeguard unit, Colwick Park Lifeguards, who have been part of the team since 1979.
The centre is also a popular place for running and triathlon events. These events use the lake, the park's tracks, and nearby roads. The Holme Pierrepont Running Club is based here too.
In August 2009, the centre hosted the Sea Scout 100 national Sea Scout Centenary Jamboree. Over 3000 Sea Scouts from all over the world, including the USA and New Zealand, came to celebrate!
Other Cool Whitewater Courses
- You might also like these other artificial whitewater courses in the UK
- Lee Valley White Water Centre
- Cardiff International White Water
- Cardington Artificial Slalom Course
- Nene Whitewater Centre
- Teesside White Water Course
