Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre

Last updated

Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre
Holme Pierrepont.jpg
view of the Sports Centre across the rowing lake
Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre
Location Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham
Opened1971

Holme Pierrepont Country Park, home of The National Water Sports Centre is located in the hamlet of Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham, England and on the River Trent. It is used for many different types of sports and has recently received significant investment which has enabled a major refurbishment of existing facilities as well as introduction of new facilities. [1]

Contents

Run by Serco on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, it was previously one of five National Sports Centres, and is a unique sporting venue set in the centre of the country.

History

The centre was constructed during 1970 and 1971 on a former gravel works and required the excavation of one and a half million cubic yards of material. The centre opened in 1971 [2] and won second prize in the 1972 Times/RICS Conservation Awards and was consequently chosen to host the first National Rowing Championships in 1972. [3] [4]

Until 2009 the centre was operated on behalf of Sport England however control was returned to Nottinghamshire County Council due to priority changes around the 2012 Summer Olympics. In 2013 a new management team from Serco Leisure was put in place, on a 21 year contract with an obligation to maintain and upgrade the site's facilities. [5]

Facilities

Set in 270 acres (1.1 km2) of parkland, Holme Pierrepont Country Park not only offers a host of water activities, but also a range of land based activities. The centre is made up of three distinct pieces of water: [6]

Outdoor Adventure Park

Holme Pierrepont Country Park also has an Outdoor Adventure Park, formerly known as the Family Fun Park, located in the Country Park area of the site. Opened in 2014, which includes:

Skytrail and Sky Tykes

The Skytrail is a high ropes course that allows participants to challenge themselves to cross a multitude of obstacles on two levels without needing to be detached at any point. Sky Tykes is a miniature version for smaller children.

Mini golf

Beneath the Skytrail sits a 9- hole mini golf course that increases in difficulty with each hole.

Gym

There are two new gyms which were opened in 2014 - these include a 60 station Life Fitness gym which overlooks the Regatta Lake and a specific Strength and Conditioning gym. Equipment includes:

Accommodation

The site has 54 refurbished en-suite bedrooms in the main Lakeside building, as well as a self-contained cottage called The Elms, which sleeps up to 11 people. The site also has an 18-acre campsite containing a mixture of grass and hard standing pitches, some available with electric hook up, 5 Tipi's (introduced in 2016) and 10 Camping Arches (insulated wooden huts for camping in). [8]

Conferencing facilities

The centre offers conference and meeting facilities and has four refurbished conference rooms, with the largest room catering for up to 150 people.

Holme Pierrepont Country Park also offers team building activities alongside their conferencing packages. [9]

A sports science and medicine centre, ran by the English Institute of Sport, is purpose built and is available for use by governing bodies for physiology, sports injury/rehabilitation and physiological testing.

Whitewater course

Holme Pierrepont Whitewater Course
HPPWhitewater.jpg
About
Locale Holme Pierrepont near Nottingham
Coordinates 52°56′45″N1°05′25″W / 52.9458°N 1.0903°W / 52.9458; -1.0903
Main shapelinear
Water source River Trent
Canoe liftNo
Construction1986
Date upgraded2009
Stats
Length700 m (2,300 ft)
Drop4 m (13 ft)
Flowrate16–25 m3/s (570–880 cu ft/s)
http://www.nwscnotts.com/

The course is a focal point for English whitewater rafting and kayaking, often holding international events for slalom, freestyle and wild water racing. One hosted event is the National Student Rodeo, the largest freestyle kayaking event in the world. During this event the Centre received coverage in local news, and publications such as Canoe & Kayak UK magazine.

Location

The whitewater course is located between the weir on the canalised River Trent and the regatta lake.

Construction

Built in 1986, the course is made primarily from concrete. It is approximately 700 metres long, drops just over 4 metres in height to produce Grade 3 whitewater rapids. The course is gravity fed, does not use electricity to power it, and therefore is relatively cheap to run.

Due to the nature of the design, swimming through the course is safer than many other locations around the UK due to deep channels and few significant underwater obstructions.

The amount of water flowing through the course depends on rainfall, and canal usage, but due to the large catchment of the Trent, flows between 16 and 25 cubic metres per second are common. As the course is directly connected to the Trent high river levels cause the course to progressively flood from the bottom upwards. The whitewater course is open to the public up to a river level of 2.2m as measured at the Environment Agency Colwick gauging station. [10]

The course was renovated in 2009. Along with essential maintenance work, some of the original concrete obstacles were removed and Omniflots (large plastic movable blocks) were installed.

Sports

Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre is home of British Canoeing, the national governing body for canoeing and kayaking in the UK, whose headquarters are at the site.

The Holme Pierrepont Canoe Club gives lessons on the flat water lake and the course, which is also used for water safety and water rescue training. It also hosts rafting, playboating, slalom; kayaking plus squirt boaters, open boat canoeists and wild water racing.

One of the main sports held at the centre is rowing, using the 2000 metre multi-lane rowing lake. The Centre was the venue for the World Rowing Junior Championships in 1973, and for the World Rowing Championships in 1975 and 1986, and many major competitions for UK rowing. Typically the safety is outsourced to local lifeguard unit Colwick Park Lifeguards who have been part of the team at Holme Pierrepont since 1979.

The centre is also the venue for many running and triathlon events, using the lake, internal tracks and easy access to local roads

The centre is the base for the Holme Pierrepont Running Club.

The centre was chosen to host the Sea Scout 100 national Sea Scout Centenary Jamboree in August 2009. Over 3000 Sea Scouts attended including the USA and New Zealand.

See also

Other UK artificial whitewater courses

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Trent</span> River in England – third-longest in the UK

The Trent is third in the list of longest rivers in the United Kingdom. Its source is in Staffordshire, on the southern edge of Biddulph Moor. It flows through and drains the North Midlands into the Humber Estuary. The river is known for dramatic flooding after storms and spring snowmelt, which in the past often caused the river to change course.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Holme Pierrepont</span> Hamlet and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England

Holme Pierrepont is a hamlet and civil parish located 5 miles (8 km) south-east of the city of Nottingham in Nottinghamshire, England. It is in the Gamston ward of the Rushcliffe local authority in the East Midlands region. The population of the civil parish as at the 2011 Census was 528.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artificial whitewater</span> Artificially created water sports venue

An artificial whitewater course (AWWC) is a site for whitewater canoeing, whitewater kayaking, whitewater racing, whitewater rafting, playboating and slalom canoeing with artificially generated rapids.

Colwick is a village, civil parish, in the Borough of Gedling in Nottinghamshire, England. It is situated to the east of Nottingham's city boundary, and forms the Colwick ward. At the time of the 2011 census, the village had a population of 2,829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Penrith Whitewater Stadium</span> White water sports venue near Sydney, Australia

The Penrith Whitewater Stadium is located near Sydney, Australia. It is an artificial whitewater sporting facility which hosted the canoe/kayak slalom events at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. The facility is part of the Penrith Lakes Scheme, which is converting open-pit sand and gravel mines into lakes for recreation. It is close to Cranebrook and is adjacent to the Sydney International Regatta Centre. These lakes are not filled via the Nepean River, but are filled via rain water and ground water. The operation of the facility aerates the water and improves water quality in the flat water rowing and canoeing course.

The British Rowing Championships usually take place every year and are normally held at the National Water Sports Centre, Holme Pierrepont (Nottingham), with occasional championships held at the Strathclyde Country Park. The championships originally incorporated Senior and Junior crews but since 2013 have been held separately. However, since 2018 the senior championships have not been held. It is a major event for club rowers and schools and events are held for open, women, open junior, women's junior, under 23, lightweight, adaptive and coastal boats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Caversham Lakes</span>

Caversham Lakes is a set of lakes created through gravel extraction between the suburb of Caversham in Reading, Berkshire and the hamlet of Sonning Eye in Oxfordshire, just north of the River Thames and also refers to the sports buildings and facilities alongside those lakes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canoe Kayak Canada</span> Governing body of competitive canoeing and kayaking disciplines in Canada

Canoe Kayak Canada is the governing body of competitive canoeing and kayaking disciplines in Canada. The three specific disciplines represented are flatwater, whitewater and marathon. Canoe Kayak Canada officially replaced the name "Canadian Canoe Association" in 2005, although the former title is still used by the organization. The name change came about from a desire to include the kayaking discipline in the organization's name.

National Student Rodeo was a freestyle kayaking event in the UK hosted by Leeds University Canoe Club. The National Student Rodeo was the biggest freestyle kayaking competition in the world, with 670 entrants and over 1000 party goers from 36 universities at its peak. It was held annually at Holme Pierrepont (HPP) National Water Sports Centre in Nottingham.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nene Whitewater Centre</span> White water sports venue near Northampton, England

The Nene Whitewater Centre was the UK's first pumped artificial whitewater course. It is located on the River Nene in Northampton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardington Artificial Slalom Course</span> White water sports course in England

Cardington Artificial Slalom Course (CASC) was the first artificial whitewater canoe slalom course in the UK when it was completed in July 1982, having been first discussed in 1972.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kanupark Markkleeberg</span>

Kanupark Markkleeberg, built in 2006, is the second of two artificial whitewater canoe/kayak slalom courses in Germany, and the only one powered by pumps. The other German course is the Eiskanal in Augsburg, used in the 1972 Summer Olympic Games in Munich. Kanupark Markkleeberg is located on the southeast shore of Markkleeberger See, a lake south of Markkleeberg, a suburb on the south side of Leipzig. A former open-pit coal mine, the lake was flooded in 1999 with groundwater and developed as a water recreation area. The lake is part of the Leipziger Neuseenland, the largest landscape construction project in Europe, which is reclaiming formerly barren industrial and mining sites for recreational use.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tim Baillie</span>

Timothy Mark Baillie MBE is a Scottish slalom canoeist who represented Britain. From Westhill in Aberdeenshire, he started competing at the international level in 1996, initially in the K1 category, but switching to C2 in 2003. He retired from the sport in 2013. He is the Olympic Champion in the C2 event from the 2012 Summer Olympics in London.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Viking Kayak Club</span> Water sports club in Bedford, England

Viking Kayak Club is an open, community-based, multi-disciplinary club and is now one of the foremost canoe and kayak clubs in the UK. The club offers a broad range of paddling opportunities from easy recreational paddling to competition in canoe slalom, canoe racing and canoe polo and is active in encouraging beginners into the sport.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sport in Nottingham</span>

Nottingham is home to several high-profile sports clubs. These include two notable Football League clubs in the shape of Nottingham Forest which, along with Liverpool, is one of only two clubs in England to have won consecutive European Cups and Notts County which is the oldest professional football club in the world. Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club is a top level county cricket club, whilst both the National Ice Centre and the National Watersports Centre are also located in the city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Outline of canoeing and kayaking</span> Overview of and topical guide to canoeing and kayaking

Canoeing – recreational boating activity or paddle sport in which you kneel or sit facing forward in an open or closed-decked canoe, and propel yourself with a single-bladed paddle, under your own power.

Nottinghamshire County Rowing Association abbreviated NCRA is a rowing club based at the Holme Pierrepont National Watersports Centre in Nottingham.

Alistair Munro born 24, September 1958 in Greenock, Scotland is a retired international sports person. He was a competitive slalom canoeist before turning to coaching and sports reporting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colwick Country Park</span> Country park in Colwick, Nottingham, England

Colwick Country Park is a country park in Colwick, Nottingham, England.

References

  1. "Holme Pierrepont Country Park reopens after £6.7m revamp". Nottingham Post. Archived from the original on 26 July 2014. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  2. "Two best eights meet in main event". Times Digital Archives.
  3. ""Holme Pierrepont National Water Sports Centre, Nottinghamshire." Times, 6 July 1972, p. I". Times Digital Archives.
  4. ""Rowing." Times, 22 July 1972, p. 6". Times Digital Archives.
  5. "Holme Pierrepont gets £6.7m management change". BBC News. 1 April 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2021.
  6. "National Water Sports Centre – Our Water". nwscnotts.com. Retrieved 10 June 2013.
  7. "Serco Sucks - 4 Reasons Why | Nottingham Wakepark | It's a Judges Life". STENO DUCK. 1 September 2017. Retrieved 13 March 2022.
  8. "Holme Pierrepont Country Park - Accommodation". nwscnotts.com. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  9. "Holme Pierrepont Country Park - Conferencing". nwscnotts.com. Retrieved 31 July 2014.
  10. "Is HPP Open? - A quick checker for HPP and Trent water levels". ishppopen.co.uk. Retrieved 24 March 2021.

52°56′42″N1°05′13″W / 52.9449°N 1.0870°W / 52.9449; -1.0870