Before Alton Towers

[BigAl]

I read in this article about John Wardley's career the other day that Tussauds had planned on turning Woburn Abbey into their flagship theme park before Alton Towers became available and they went for that instead.

It seems that John and a few others had prepared detailed plans for Woburn Abbey and I'd love to see them one day.

Anyway, upon trying to dig around a little more for information on the Woburn Abbey project, I found this American newspaper that has been uploaded to Google which goes into detail about Tussauds before they took control of Alton Towers and abandoned their Woburn Abbey plans. I thought I'd create a topic on here and share the articles in case anyone else wanted to have a read. I know a few of you might already know all about this, but I didn't so I guess there must be a few others that don't know some of the things that these two articles touch on.

I'll try and find other bits and bobs to post and I hope that if anyone else knows anything or finds something out that they'll post that too.

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

It's such a shame the Tussaud's brand has been lost - along with everything it stood for it seems. I suppose it got to a point where they grew so large that it was inevitable they would be swallowed up by greedy venture capitalists.

 

[BigAl]

I agree, Chris. :/

I'm sending a few emails around to try and find out more about the plans to turn Woburn Abbey into a theme park. Anything I find out will be posted straight onto here!

 

[BigAl]

I've come across another small piece of information that I've discovered as to why Tussauds didn't build a theme park at Woburn Abbey here. The part I'm on about is from 1988 and states:

Woburn Abbey. The Parish Council object to the proposed theme park at Woburn Abbey, designed by Tussauds to attract 2.5 million visitors per annum.

So it seems that Woburn Abbey would never have become a theme park anyway. It must have been a real blow for Tussauds after they'd spent time creating detailed plans for an entire theme park to go there.



The only other thing I can find regarding this project is the extract from Woburn Abbey's Wikipedia page which doesn't really cover anything that I haven't already posted:

In the early 1990s, the Marquess and The Tussauds Group planned to turn the Abbey into a large theme park with the help of John Wardley, creator of the roller coasters "Nemesis" and "Oblivion". However, Tussauds bought Alton Towers and built one there instead.

This extract gets used a lot on various historical websites, so I guess that there sren't very many out there that know much or anything about all of this!



Besides that, the Wikipedia page for the 14th Duke of Bedford, Robin Russel, briefly mentions his plans to turn Woburn Abbey into a theme park falling through:

However, his plans to develop a major theme park at Woburn failed to come to fruition.

That's all I've found so far. Slim pickings! :/

 

[thefatone]

It's such a shame the Tussaud's brand has been lost - along with everything it stood for it seems. I suppose it got to a point where they grew so large that it was inevitable they would be swallowed up by greedy venture capitalists.

Totally like to point out here that the Tussaud's brand was lost, with everything it stood for, when Pearsons sold them to greedy venture capitalists in the late 90s. Lost well over a decade ago.

Good read though!

 

[DaveW]

It's a strange thought that Alton towers wasn't their first choice of location for a theme park! How different would life be if they had been successful with their original plan!

Maybe worth asking John Wardley about it at some point if we ever meet him again?

 

[BigAl]

Just had an email back from Woburn Abbey and their archivist couldn't find anything there about the plans. The only other person who would know anything for sure that we know of is Mr Wardley himself, but I've no idea how to contact him, or whether I should bother any one else about it anyway?

 

[BigAl]

After I plucked-up the courage to send an email to John Wardley about this project, this is what he had to say about the Woburn Abbey proposal and a couple of other ideas that Tussads had before they acquired Alton Towers:

In 1988 when it was apparent that our development at Chessington had become a big financial success we considered how it could be expanded to become Britain ’s premier theme park attraction. But the local planners at the Royal Borough of Kingston made it abundantly clear that they would never permit large scale expansion and development on the site, and we had to look elsewhere.

Ray Barratt (who was the Tussauds executive director responsible for Chessington) and I considered various sites around Britain , and Corby Development Corporation in Northamptonshire were desperate for us to choose the old Corby Steelworks site which had become redundant, and they were prepared to give us huge incentives to develop a big theme park there. We went to look at the site, but the cost of converting a very ugly brownfield site into a beautifully landscaped theme park was going to be enormous, and that was even before we started to consider the cost of rides and attractions.

On the way back down the M1 from Corby, Ray said “Let’s call in at Woburn , as we’re passing”. Ray had been General Manager there many years previously, and knew the Duke and Duchess of Bedford well. That led to meetings with them, and they were really very keen indeed to work with us on plans to augment the animal park there with a fully-blown theme park. But, unfortunately the local planners and English Heritage were not.

During our discussions with Woburn , I had cause to contact my various colleagues at Alton Towers concerning other matters, but whenever I tried to phone them (and this was in the days before mobile phones) they were never there, and I was constantly being told “they’re down at Battersea”. When I did manage to contact them, they all bemoaned the fact that John Broome’s Battersea project was drawing valuable resources from Alton Towers , and that Alton was suffering as a result. Numbers were decreasing, and new attraction developments were being put on hold.

Eventually we decided that we were never going to get planning consent for Woburn , and the search for a site was on again. So I suggested to Ray Barratt that perhaps Alton Towers might be on the market. He said that was a daft idea as Alton was a thriving attraction and was unlikely to be sold at the right price. However, when I told him the underlying story regarding Battersea he had a word with the financial wizards at one of the Pearson-owned merchant banks who did some investigations into Alton …… and the rest is history.

The ideas we had for Woburn were very similar to those which eventually became a reality at Alton .

Thanks, John!

 

[Alastair]

Very interesting how events unfolded. The Battersea project looks to have been the catalyst for the sale of Alton Towers and its transformation into what we see today. Very ironic that something drawing resources away at the time has in the long run benefited the place more than ever could have been imagined

 

[TheMan]

PLANNERS!!!!!


JOBSWORTHS!!!!!

Get a proper job and stop ruining everyone elses!!!

;D

It does confirm the discussions in the Chessie thread though. That once again, being serious, it is PLANNERS who should actually be called...

SCUPPERERS.

/Rant

 

[BigAl]

Hahaha, woooaah, steady on there!

It is a shame that the planners wouldn't budge at all with them. They could have at least made a small theme park with a Safari park but perhaps that would have prevented them from getting Alton Towers anyway?

Maybe one day in the future someone will be able to take Woburn a little furtherer? West Midlands always strikes me as the sort of place that could really benefit with this sort of plan. I could really see the place being the UK's answer to Busch Gardens Africa! :L



Ah well, unless there are any other documents floating around, I guess I can say that the case is closed here!

 

[TheMan]

Great research Al,

The Safari Park is my closest park by far. I pass it regularly, but have only been there a couple of times - because once you have done it, I don't know, it's a bit "meh" really.

However, some of the memories I have from there are hilarious, not least a giraffe poking it's head through the sunroof, and being chased by angry "bambi's"!

It is a cracking little park, that is also great value given what their spend must be! If that had been attached to Drayton Manor (you get the point), they'd have been onto a winner my friend for sure.

I doubt AT would be the No1 theme park.

I wish it nothing but success, and I'd love to see it developed more!

(By the way, I was more referring to Chessie planners as we've discussed before lol).

So my point stands.... JOBSWORTHS!!

;D

 

[DaveW]

Very interesting how events unfolded. The Battersea project looks to have been the catalyst for the sale of Alton Towers and its transformation into what we see today. Very ironic that something drawing resources away at the time has in the long run benefited the place more than ever could have been imagined

I've always though this for years! Every time I get a train out of Waterloo and see the battersea sat there I always think about how that olace is responsible for giving us the resort we see today, I feel a pilgrimage is in order! Haha. As that ace is th Ernest thing that ever happened no Alton towers!

 

[Badgy]

It does confirm the discussions in the Chessie thread though. That once again, being serious, it is PLANNERS who should actually be called...

SCUPPERERS.

Whilst I agree to a point, we should remember that without the planning restrictions that are in place at Alton Towers we would probably not have the likes of Nemesis. John Wardley himself has stated that the restrictions caused him to think out of the box and create experiences that fitted within the regulations.

Maybe now that Alton Towers has grown to be such a large part of the local economy, some of these restrictions are relaxed or boundaries pushed, but rather than leading to innovation actually lead to some laziness in attraction design.

Badgy