MK Skate Trail
Milton Keynes and skateboarding
In the early 1960s, the idea of a New Town in North Buckinghamshire was starting to become a reality. At the same time, 6,000 miles away in California, ‘sidewalk surfing’ was beginning to transition into skateboarding and was growing more popular by the day. By 1967, the city of Milton Keynes was inaugurated and skateboarding was entering the mainstream. The architects of the new city were influenced and inspired by the Modern Movement, and in particular the German-American architect Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, director of the Bauhaus and responsible for a style he described as ‘Less is More’. Central Milton Keynes is a classic of his style of urban design, resulting in clean lines, solid granite blocks with square corners, sets of steps with handrails, ramps, and sloped, covered underpasses. Like with the skateboarders of California who used empty swimming pools, long straight roads and dry pipelines to perform tricks, early MK skaters used their city as a playground. The city’s new infrastructure influenced a new more urban style of skating and Milton Keynes soon became known as a leading spot for street skating, which continues to prevail today. |
Milton Keynes Theatre
Milton Keynes Theatre was opened in 1999, and it didn’t take the local skateboard community long to realise the potential that the area held. Around the side of the neighbouring original MK Gallery stood a set of eight stairs known colloquially as the ‘Theatre 8’, and a unique curved marble ledge, the likes of which could not be found anywhere else in the UK. Both spots were removed when the gallery underwent renovation between 2017-2019. Although the original skate spots have been lost skaters have found new opportunities within the refurbished area. At the front of the Theatre and Gallery the public square (Margaret Powell Square) itself boasts a collection of free-standing ledges which have become something of a proving ground, with the likes of skate legends Sean Smith, James Bush, Will Golding and Karim Bakhtaoui, all performing memorable yet difficult flip tricks over them. From Margaret Powell Square with the Theatre on your left, head downhill, you will pass a bar called Midsummer Tap and the main road will be to your right. |
The Food Court
Thanks to its smooth sets of stairs and desirable collection of handrails, The Food Court was another mainstay of any weekend roll through the town during the early 1990s. A typical session of skateboarding in this location was documented in the mammoth 1991 Leo Sharp produced video All Day Breakfast. As the years rolled by and the spot became widely known it made a handful of appearances in the national skateboard media. At present, The Food Court and its associated spots are still standing, though the building has reportedly long-been earmarked for redevelopment. Continue from here downhill with The Food Court on your left |
The Point
Opening in 1985 as the UK’s first multi-plex cinema, this is where many early Milton Keynes skaters would have been inspired by films such as ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘Police Academy Four’. The Point boasts a lengthy curved marble ledge adjacent to the front entrance that has been home to many manual variations over the years, most notably Rob Selley’s nosemanual nollie heelflip out.
Facing the Point building take the left side turning - Lower Tenth Street, and follow the side of the building, turning right at the corner and before the road
Opening in 1985 as the UK’s first multi-plex cinema, this is where many early Milton Keynes skaters would have been inspired by films such as ‘Back to the Future’ and ‘Police Academy Four’. The Point boasts a lengthy curved marble ledge adjacent to the front entrance that has been home to many manual variations over the years, most notably Rob Selley’s nosemanual nollie heelflip out.
Facing the Point building take the left side turning - Lower Tenth Street, and follow the side of the building, turning right at the corner and before the road
The Point Rail
To the rear of The Point complex there is a spot that the local skaters refer to as the ‘Point Rail’, which is a black knee-high metal flat bar over a patch of soil. The drain in the immediate ride out makes this rail an awkward one to conquer, though Sean Smith effortlessly racked up no shortage of grind and slide tricks on it whilst filming for the Motive Skateboards video ‘Dimensions’, with a visiting Nick Remon seeing fit to frontside feeble grind the thing during a visit back in 2012. An illustration of The Point was also featured on Rob Selley’s debut pro board from Blueprint Skateboards in 1998, housed inside the MK telephone area code of the time - 0908. Continue along Avebury Boulevard, go through the underpass and then take the underpass to your right, continue straight and pass the front of the Holiday Inn hotel. A public square with a tall sculpture titled ‘The Space Between’ will be on your left. |
The Holiday Inn/Trusthouse double set
Two sets of stairs built from paving slabs and set in a configuration with five steps, then a flat middle section, followed by another five steps. In skateboarding lore, this obstacle is seen as one single object, hence ‘double set’. Local legend knows this spot as the ‘Pritchard Double Set’, so called after Matt Pritchard, the professional skateboarder turned celebrity vegan chef who first conquered the infamous set of steps back in 1994. At that time, an ollie of this scale (over 5m long) was pretty much unchartered territory as far as the UK was concerned. It’s believed that in the years since, only four other people have ever managed to ollie down this hefty set, one of which being Milton Keynes native Joe Nobes. On the far side of the ‘Pritchard Double Set’ sits a tall granite ledge that starts on the edge of the Creswell Lane car park and runs all the way down to the Holiday Inn entrance. This has received its fair share of attention over the years, though it’s been two local skateboarders who have performed the most memorable tricks of recent times on it – Giles Brown with a crooked grind in the late 2000s, and Joe Hinson with a frontside tailslide in 2016.
Search #ollie, #crookedgrind and #fronttail on Instagram to see this style of trick in action Cross the road on your right through the Porte Cocheres (black structures). Turn left at the Job Centre and then right at the next junction. You will walk through with the City Church on your right and Fred Roche Gardens on your left. Turn left again on Silbury Boulevard. |
The Brown Bar on Silbury Boulevard is really two spots: a flat bar in front of four steps outside Silbury Court East and a similar bar at the foot of a set of eight steps further down the hill, outside Silbury Court West. Early attempts to skate-proof this building gave Milton Keynes one of its most infamous skate spots. So-called as the original bars built across the two sets of stairs were painted brown, the bars were intended to stop people jumping down the stairs. Ironically, this created a spot with far more potential as the placement of the brown bars added further challenge to the spot. Although referred to as one spot, Brown Bars actually encompasses two contiguous but distinct spots. The smaller of the two bars sits across a set of four steps, with the larger and lesser-skated one sitting across a set of eight stairs.
Since local skater Dean Jasper appeared in R.A.D magazine in 1991 ollieing the eight-step version, both the brown bars have featured prominently in magazines, skate videos and social media both in the UK and internationally. The four-step bar was first ollied in 1989 by James ‘Doc’ Matthews, and Rob Selley was featured in an advert for skateboard company Blueprint backside flipping it in 1997. More recently local skateboarder James Bush attracted global attention with his frontside 180 fakie manual revert into the road. The eight-step bar has also seen its fair share of action with notable skaters including Mike Manzoori, Jereme Rogers and Louie Lopez. Perhaps the most celebrated brown bar memory, however, is Brian Anderson’s four trick line which starts with a frontside nollie over the four-step bar and ends with an ollie over the handrail at the far end. Search #frontside180, #frontsidenollie and #180fakiemanualrevert on Instagram to see this style of trick in action Cross the road to the other side of Silbury Boulevard and turn left. |
The Milton Keynes County Court on Silbury Boulevard was where most of the first real handrail skating took place in Milton Keynes. In the late 1980s local skaters, inspired by seeing American pros in magazines and bootlegged skate videos, started to try their first tricks on its two five-step rails. This featured in much of the early coverage of Milton Keynes in skate magazines like Skateboard! and R.A.D. Ian Weston, Dean Jasper and James ‘Doc’ Matthews were among the first to skate here, establishing a culture of handrail skating in the city that lasts to the present day. Other notable early skaters here include James Jessop, Brian Wynne, and Leo Sharp, who performed a frontside 180 to fakie nosegrind. The original handrails have since been replaced and skate stoppers added to prevent skateboarding here.
Search #180fakienosegrind on Instagram to see this style of trick in action With the County Court building to your left and behind you, cross back over Silbury Boulevard onto Upper Fifth Street |
Sovereign Court and Regency Court combine to form an office complex on Witan Gate and together are one of Milton Keynes’ most renowned skate spots, with their distinctive Portland stone concrete earning them the nickname ‘The Beige’. The complex’s smooth open areas, concrete plinths and multiple stairways offered early MK skaters an irresistible learning ground for modern street skating and its six large centre-piece steps, or ‘Big Beige’, became an iconic feature that would eventually attract skateboarders from all over the country. Notable Big Beige skaters include Steve Martin, who performed the first ollie here, James Jessop, who did the first kickflip, and Joe Nobes who mastered the first barrier ollie.
It was due to this popularity that during the ‘90s, The Beige became the scene of a ‘battle’ between skaters and its landlords, who began to install various signs and obstacles in an attempt to stop skateboarding there. Ultimately, many of these skate-stoppers only enhanced the spot’s attractiveness by offering skaters greater challenges and inspiring some of the most celebrated moments in British skateboarding history. Perhaps the greatest of these took place in 1994 when Welsh skateboarder Matt Pritchard became the first person to roll away from flip tricks over a cobbled skate-stopper which later came to be known as the ‘Pritch Gap.’ |
Search #ollie and #kickflip on Instagram to see this style of trick in action
Continue on Upper Fifth Street towards Midsummer Boulevard. Cross to the other side of the Boulevard and turn right to head downhill on Midsummer Boulevard, at the road junction pass through the underpass and continue downhill, turn right onto Elder Gate.
Continue on Upper Fifth Street towards Midsummer Boulevard. Cross to the other side of the Boulevard and turn right to head downhill on Midsummer Boulevard, at the road junction pass through the underpass and continue downhill, turn right onto Elder Gate.
The Buszy
The Bus Station, or the Buszy skate plaza it is today, has been the site of many legendary skate competitions over the years. In 1992 people travelled from far and wide, packing out the then still used bus station to skate the pristine marble for one of the earliest contests, resulting in innumerable photos printed in UK skate magazines and footage on UK skate videos. In 2002, the SK8MK project started with the aim of tackling issues surrounding skateboarding in the city between. Conflicting ideals and community tension meant that consultation needed to take place to find solutions. A dedicated skate spot was needed. Proposals from the skate community led to The Bus Station being chosen as an ideal location. It was no longer being used as a bus station and there were no plans of what to do with it. It had long been a popular spot for skaters in the city thanks to the concrete infrastructure and wide, open spaces. A team lead by city architect Andrew Armes, local pro skater Rob Selley, and designer Richard Ferrington, worked with the skate community to draw up designs that would create a space that worked for everyone. It was agreed that the ‘Buszy’, as it became known, needed to reflect the popular skate spots of Milton Keynes and so should be somewhere for street skating. The choice of materials was critical to give the feeling of authentic street skating, so granite and stainless steel featured heavily. When finished in 2005, the Buszy became heralded as one of the most unique skateboard plazas in the world. Later in 2007, an event called 'The Battle of The Buszy' was held to christen the new space. US pro skaters from the infamous Plan B board company were in attendance for the event who, along with skaters from across the UK, ripped the newly installed Buszy marble to shreds during one of the most intense sessions ever seen there. The spectacle of the likes of PJ Ladd, Colin McKay, Danny Way and Pat Duffy skating alongside MK locals is something that has gone down in UK skate history and will be forever enshrined in MK skate lore. Today, the Buszy is still used for competitions, big and small, and as an ideal location for shooting street skating videos. Walk back to Midsummer Boulevard along Elder Gate with the Old Bus Station on your right. Turn left through the underpass into Station Square. |
Station Square
With its wide-open spaces and long granite blocks, Station Square has attracted skateboarders since it opened in the mid-1980s. Following the removal of the central blocks from the Old Bus Station in 1995, the square became Milton Keynes’ primary skate spot for the next ten years, appearing regularly in British magazines like Sidewalk Surfer and several skate videos, including Blueprint’s ‘A Mixed Media’ (1996) and ‘Anthems’ (1998). During that time, it was one of the only MK spots with granite blocks that vary in height from low to high, enabling generations of skateboarders to learn and progress their ledge tricks. Throughout the 1990s, local skater Rob Selley set new levels of technical ability in British skateboarding here and it also provided a learning ground for Sean Smith, another future MK pro. The main attractions are the long granite plinths at each side that increase in height from four inches to around one metre, and the long square blocks which hem the north-east side and run up and down subtle slopes. There are also several gaps from the ledges into the roads and paving around a sculpture which have seen a lot of action over the years. |
To find out more about skateboarding in MK visit: https://tinyurl.com/y2sb28xl and https://mkskate.org