Charnwood Bowl | Skateboarding Historical past

The Charnwood Bowl is considered Australia’s second oldest skatepark. Fortunate sufficient this skatepark nonetheless exists at this time, although it’s a bit tough across the edges it is rather rideable.

The story of this park begins in 1979 and it looks like it’s at all times been a little bit of a controversial place that has been scrutinised from the very starting. What we’ve is a extra shallow snakerun that’s round 36 metres in size, it stands round 3 toes deep that ends in a medium measurement bowl round 4-5 toes deep.

With restricted to no skate spots within the state on the time, the skateboarding neighborhood had been attempting to push for a spot that would cater for the recognition of the game. Some residents had been additionally onboard with this undertaking as they had been seeing that youngsters skateboarding on the streets was turning into unsafe. There was a transparent divide locally, with an equal break up of those that had been for and towards the skatepark growth within the space.

Improvement of this skatepark kicked off within the August of 1979 in a small park within the suburb of Charnwood, Canberra, but as soon as work commenced in clearing the location, native residents put a halt on the development by gathering sufficient individuals to signal a petition opposing the undertaking. Apparently the NCDC or Nationwide Capital Improvement Fee didn’t make the residents conscious that there can be a skatepark constructed of their space. Their fundamental concern was the park was not large enough to suit the skatepark because the park backs proper onto many of the houses within the space. A few of the folks that lived within the native space, had been confused why this place was chosen as there have been numerous different areas with bigger house that would have been extra applicable for the snakerun / bowl.

Because it appears to be like from digging right into a bunch of outdated newspaper articles there have been a couple of native children that needs to be credited for pushing the undertaking on. 20 native children rallied collectively and created their very own petition going towards the mother and father opposing the park’s building. They had been additionally backed by numerous adults within the space that had been optimistic for this undertaking. Throughout late August 1979 there was a city assembly held to debate the undertaking, which was pushed by means of and work lastly commenced on ending the skatepark throughout September of 1979.

Now there’s some discrepancy on the date this skatepark was really constructed, most sources say that it was constructed throughout 1978, but all of the newspapers discovered speaking in regards to the park’s building are dated in 1979, so we’re going to go together with what’s reported within the newspaper archives for best accuracy.

Gaining anymore data on how this place was used for the a long time after it was constructed are fairly restricted. There have been modifications made to the snakerun additional time, with one of many sides having this gutter added to the highest, with like these boulders or massive stones moulded into the cement. It appears to be like fairly ridiculous, so not fairly positive why this was carried out because it simply makes the lip on one aspect of the snakerun fairly effectively unrideable.

Most just lately the Canberra Skateboarding Related, submitted paperwork to the Australian Authorities with reference to a proposed ACT skateboarding technique, to handle present and future infrastructure and upkeep wants. The Charnwood Bowl was on their checklist of parks that needs to be maintained and in addition expanded. There are literally fairly a couple of outdated skateparks that had been inbuilt Canberra throughout this time. The Kambah u-pipe is one other loopy spot, which was constructed shortly after the Charnwood bowl; this u-pipe nonetheless exists and has simply been saved from being demolished. That is really a extremely gnarly spot, so go and test this place out.

So based mostly on the whole lack of understanding and media, it appears to be like just like the Charnwood bowl was used much less and fewer over time. There are a few YouTube movies of this place, but based mostly on its location and I assume restricted house it was a spot that simply fell out of use. It did make the duvet of Skatin’ Life a retro Australia skate magazine in the course of the Jan / Feb 1990 concern. It was additionally skated by Ralph Lee throughout 1989.

If anybody has any additional data or media from this spot, please get in touch with us. We’d love to listen to from you.