Drayton Manor Resort is a family theme park, zoo and accommodation in the grounds of the former Drayton Manor, in Drayton Bassett, Staffordshire, England, UK. It covers 180 acre, of which about 113 acre are in use, and hosts about 1.5 million people each year. It is the fourth-largest amusement park in the UK by land area at 280 acre. The park is also home to Thomas Land and Drayton Manor Zoo, home to over 100 animals, including red pandas, Eurasian lynx, and a variety of monkeys and gibbons.
On 3 August 2020, Drayton Manor Park was sold to Looping Group, who also owns West Midlands Safari Park.[1]
History
The land on which the theme park was built once belonged to the Peel family. Drayton Manor mansion, built for Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, in 1835, had been reduced to ruins by 1926, with only the clocktower surviving at the park entrance. The British Army requisitioned it as a training post during World War II. After the war, entrepreneurs George and Vera Bryan borrowed £6,000 and bought the land (and the 17 huts that the army had constructed during their stay). In 1950, they opened a small amusement park with just a handful of children's rides. In 1954, Mrs. Molly Badham, who later opened the nearby Twycross Zoo