History
The land on which the theme park was built used to belong to the Peel family but the mansion (built in 1790) had been reduced to mere ruins when the British Army requisitioned it as a training post during World War II. After the war had ended two entrepreneurs, George and Vera Bryan, borrowed 6000 pounds and bought the land (and the 17 huts that the army had constructed during their stay). They opened a small amusement park with just a handful of children´s rides in 1949. In 1954 Mrs Molly Badham (who later opened the nearby Twycross Zoo) joined forces with the Bryans and opened a small zoo to compliment the fun park. The amusement park grew slowly in the 1950´s, 60´s and 70´s but in the late 80´s the park began to install bigger and more thrilling rides to attract customers from all over the United Kingdom. The result is that Drayton Manor Theme Park is today the 6th most popular theme park in the UK. The park is still being managed by the Bryan family.
Read more about this topic: Drayton Manor Theme Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The principle office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–117)
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“History ... is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
But what experience and history teach is this—that peoples and governments have never learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)