PICTURES AND VIDEO: It's ten years since the American Adventure closed - can you remember the popular local theme park?

It is exactly ten years ago this month that the American Adventure theme park announced it was closing down.

Thousands of local families and children visited the park in its heyday - enjoying a host of rides and attractions which made it an ideal day out when you were growing up.

The American Adventure was a big hit for two decades.

placeholder image — The American Adventure was a big hit for two decades.

We've dipped back into our archives to find some pictures and video of the Derbyshire park which opened to huge fanfares and massive crowds in the summer of 1987.

For twenty years, visitors enjoyed a string of white-knuckle rides at the park near Shipley, Ilkeston before in January 2007, it was announced that the American Adventure wouldn't be returning for that summer season.

Children flocked to the park in their thousands in its heyday.

After its closure, the site fell into dereliction but in 2015 plans to build more than 300 homes and businesses on the site were given the green light.

Here's a pictorial reminder of the American dream...