Once the property of Miller Mundy family, the lords of the Manor of Shipley Hall and owner of Shipley Colliery Company. Once there were 3 coal mines, working 15 seams of coal and 30 railway sidings covering 176 acres in this vicinity. The lake served as a reservoir (Along with Osbournes and Coppice pond and Mapperley reservoir) which maintained water levels in The Nutbrook Canal. This canal ran from Shipley lake past Stanton Ironworks, linking the collieries, Mundy's brickworks and Stanton ironworks to The Erewash Canal. The Colliery came under the control of the National Coal Board in 1947 and had closed in the 1960's. In the early 1970's the parkland was bought by Derbyshire County Council opened the area as a country park in 1976, and later co-operated in the development of the 'Brittania' Theme Park. At the same time, much of the land was opencast for coal by KLF mining, then re-instated by the late 1980's as park and agricultural land. The old Shipley pond was drained during open-casting operations then afterwards re-lined with clay and refilled with water to form the 37 acre freshwater Shipley Lake. During 1985, The American Adventure took on the unsuccessful Brittania park site and began further developing a theme park around the edge of the lake. In June 1987 the new theme park was opened.