Adventure Island is a free-admission amusement park in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. The site of the amusement park flanks the north end of Southend Pier and has been an amusement park since 1976 when the land now forming the west side of the park was purchased by the Miller family.
Adventure Island started out in 1918 as Sunken Gardens, a sea-side garden that in the 1920s installed a few children’s rides. In 1976, the land to the west of the pier was purchased by the Miller family. They developed the amusement park on the site from the rudimentary original and the entire site was redeveloped extensively.
In 1995 the park was vastly expanded when the land to the east of the pier was purchased to form part of the park.
Complementing the park is Southend Pier, the longest pleasure pier in the world (built in 1830 as a wooden pier, rebuilt as a steel pier in 1889); it extends more than a mile (1,34 miles/2,16 km) toward the ocean. The pier train runs the entire length of the pier to the Lifeboat Museum. The park’s mascot is called Snappy.