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 , of which about 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 . The park is also home to Thomas Land and Drayton Manor Zoo, home to over 500 animals, including Red pandas, Eurasian lynx, Sumatran tigers and a variety of monkeys and gibbons. On 3 August 2020, Drayton Manor Park was sold to Looping Group, who own two other attractions in the UK, West Midland Safari Park and Pleasurewood Hills. History The land on which the theme park was built on 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, partnered with the Bryans and opened a zoo to complement the amusement park. The amusement park grew slowly in the 1950s, '60s and '70s, but, in the late '80s, the park began to install bigger and more thrilling rides to attract customers from all over the United Kingdom and to compete with rival theme parks. In 1992 Colin Bryan, George Bryan's son, became managing director of the park. George Bryan is the grandson of the founders of Drayton Manor Park. Along with his brother and cousins, he grew up in the family business, working – albeit unofficially – from the age of 12 or 13. This career began with menial tasks, before progressing to more complex aspects of operations. George Bryan went on to develop expertise throughout the whole business. In 2013 George's brother, William Bryan, became managing director while George moved out of operations to work at board level; the park in 2020 has been taken over by a corporate group, called The Looping Group. In February 2020, the park suffered flood damage from