There have been waxworks in Blackpool since the 1870s - whether Monsieur D'Arc and Elias Fletcher's in a wooden building just south of Central Pier, or in the 1890s Mr Lee's Grand Museum and Royal Waxwork in a shop in Church Street. In 1900 the great grandson of the famous Madame, Louis Tussaud, arrived in Blackpool after leaving London following a fire. His first display - from July that year - was in the basement of the Hippodrome Theatre on Church Street, before moving to the Brunswick Café, South Beach in 1901.

Tussaud was subsequently bought out by former mayor and land-owner Albert Lindsay Parkinson, who also acquired Walker's Waxworks opposite Central Pier in 1907. Cannily, Parkinson was able to keep the Tussaud name. Even after the present premises were opened on the Golden Mile in May 1929 there was another connection with the original Tussauds, as Bernard Tussaud briefly became the company's sculptor.

The Waxworks were expanded in 1974 and the company also owned Liverpool's School of Anatomy's exhibition (adults only) where, during the 1950s, several of Sir Jacob Epstein's controversial sculptures and drawings were exhibited in the basement.

Nowadays on the Golden Mile you can see modern heroes in the Rock Factory (from Frank Sinatra to Robbie Williams), a tribute to Coronation Street (Ena Sharples included), an audience with the current royal family, Steve McMahon's dream eleven (including Pele, Eric Cantona and Bobby Moore) in the sports hall, stars of stage and screen and the ever-popular chiller thriller, the Chamber of Horrors.

Louis Tussauds Waxworks