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Drayton Manor Park

The country houses of the Drayton Manor estate.

I was just doing some research and was reminded that there are some decent sized and some outright gorgeous houses, all situated on the Drayton Manor estate. I wonder who owns these now? Fairly certain these had nothing to do with the sale. So they probably will still be in the hands of the Shipley, Bryan and Pawley families. Lets take a look..

The first house is situated at the back of the farm, behind the Bryan Museum, accessible from the secondary road into Drayton Manors main entrance. (The one off the A5 Watling Street). The house is still occupied and lived in, as it is viewable from the public side access road to Drayton Manor Park.
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This second photo shows the collection of houses wedged up to the top of the park, near the main road entrance. The white U shaped building in the photo is the central stores for the park, which is linked to the park via the public access side road as mentioned above. You can also see the parks main entrance on the top left of the photo. To the very right of the photo is the zoo. I can see at least 7 houses here. All on Drayton Manor parkland.
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This is the same photo as above but from a different perspective. All circled in red are houses on the land. You can see the stores building again. The gold circled area is the main entrance for the theme park, also the entrance for the Bryans family houses. The blue circled area being The Haunting, Sheriffs showdown and whatever Drunken Barrels has now become. You can also make out the foundations of what was Apocalypse and the site for this years new coaster on the very left on the park. These houses are exactly why the enterprise which is now home at Thorpe Park only lasted a few seasons, it was situated smack bang in the blue circled area. Rides here used to have strict no screaming signs due to these houses. It remains to be seen what happens when this new coaster opens later this year.

Notice how the driveways to most of these houses are on the same drive as the backstage area for the parks two dark rides.
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This next photo is or was Colin Bryan's home to the left, his late father, George Bryan's home to the right. These are at the other side of the land, just before the carpark behind Shockwave (The Wave). You will see these houses if you look to your 2PM position when cresting the top of The Waves lift hill. (just to your right).
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You can see here again, just how close these houses were to the park, slightly further away than the other houses are at the top of the park (naturally as this was the owners house) but situated well within the beautiful, scenic Drayton Manor Estate. You can just about make out the moss covered driveaway of George Bryan's house in this photo. Suggesting that house had not been used for some time.
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It is my understanding that these houses, along with the land that the theme park sits on were not part of the sale to Looping's Group. It is a unique situation here in the UK, no other theme park has so many large country style and occupied houses within the land of a park itself.

Say what you want about the theme park, but the parklands surrounding Drayton Manor, while no Alton Towers in terms of pure beauty, are stunning in their own right. Like Alton Towers, I guess this is why they originally chose to build a big stately home there in the first place. I do not think any other theme parks outside these two Staffordshire parks, are located in such beautiful locations. This is of course, my own subjective opinion.
 
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Good write-up, thanks. Love this type of content. The white u-shaped building that I think you mentioned was a storage building, looks from above like an old stables block. Could that be from the demolished manor house? I used to have a little book on the history of the old house and grounds there, but I've got no idea what I've done with it. Nice work, will look at this again on PC later today :)
 
BarryZola said:
Good write-up, thanks. Love this type of content. The white u-shaped building that I think you mentioned was a storage building, looks from above like an old stables block. Could that be from the demolished manor house? I used to have a little book on the history of the old house and grounds there, but I've got no idea what I've done with it. Nice work, will look at this again on PC later today :)
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Interesting possibility, I have never considered that in all these years. The driveway from the stores, which leads past all the houses and goes upto the main offices / tower ballroom, has the final remaining piece of the statley home, the clock tower. So very possible that this building could have been the old stables. It is certainly the right distance away from what would have been the house. As they wanted the stables close but never too close when designing these houses. I will be very interested to see what information you have on this.

EDIT: It does seem to show up on an old map of the site too. So it was there are part of the old house. You can see it here to the right of the Drayton Manor wording.

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After yesterdays debacle at AT I’m very keen/nervous to see how Drayton fares in terms of operations this year. Are they typically closer to Merlin or Paultons?
 
I know some of them houses are used for some of the Zoo keepers as staff have to be there 24/7.
I know Colin moved to Torquay after the sale but not sure if William and his family are still there as he still got local businesses.
I think Drayton will have a quiet opening of the season as really only Maelstrom is open of the big rides. The Wave is rumoured to open next weekend.
 
Bowser said:
After yesterdays debacle at AT I’m very keen/nervous to see how Drayton fares in terms of operations this year. Are they typically closer to Merlin or Paultons?
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It would be unfair to make a comparison. Merlin parks have coasters with more than one train, Drayton currently doesn't.

The rapids were down for most of last year's season because of staff shortages, with remaining staff being used on other rides. Stormforce 10 can't operate if the water level in the lake drops below a certain point.

I don't have experience with Drayton's equivalent of RAP, but Fastrack queues and RAP queues are non-existent; by which I mean you never see anyone in them and if you do they're on the ride right away. No idea about time outs, or restrictions.

The flats operate like clockwork, with minimal downtime, but loading can take a while. Loki is a logistics nightmare and I've given up on that queue twice. It looks short as hell, but it's the slowest experience I've seen.

Needless to say, I can't comment on Thomas Land.

If the queues are getting too much though, and the rides are going down, you have escapism in the zoo.

Drayton is a very small park, outside of Thomas Land. It doesn't attract anywhere near the sort of crowds you see at Merlin attractions.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
It would be unfair to make a comparison. Merlin parks have coasters with more than one train, Drayton currently doesn't.
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Sounds closer to Paultons based on your description.

I don't think it's unfair to seek a comparison for reference though. I appreciate it's not like for like in terms of ride mechanisms etc but in terms of user experience, it's clear that Paulton's invest heavily in making sure their rides are operational when they say they will be and Merlin do not. The reasons for that are a separate discussion but there are plenty of parks out there with similar if not more complex rides than Merlin that obviously share the same philosophy as Paulton's and i wondered where Drayton fit in that scale.
 
Bowser said:
I appreciate it's not like for like in terms of ride mechanisms etc but in terms of user experience, it's clear that Paulton's invest heavily in making sure their rides are operational when they say they will be and Merlin do not.
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Drayton's coasters have as much, if not more, downtime than a Merlin park. Shockwave didn't run for most of its closing event.

The majority of the rides in the park are flats. If we're comparing like for like, they have the same amount of minimal downtime as Merlin parks. (Although Maelstrom was out for about a month). The big difference being that Drayton just won't open rides, at all, without notice or explanation if they don't have the staff.

I can't comment on Paulton's, I haven't visited since 1993.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
Drayton's coasters have as much, if not more, downtime than a Merlin park. Shockwave didn't run for most of its closing event.

The majority of the rides in the park are flats. If we're comparing like for like, they have the same amount of minimal downtime as Merlin parks. (Although Maelstrom was out for about a month). The big difference being that Drayton just won't open rides, at all, without notice or explanation if they don't have the staff.

I can't comment on Paulton's, I haven't visited since 1993.
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Ah fair enough, doesn’t sound like Paultons at all then 😂
 
In fairness Drayton is aiming to be like Paultons though it's not there yet. I'm going later this year when everything is open. I think the new coaster will do wonders for the park but I agree.the opening week will probably be a quite one especially if the Wave isn't open.
 
Relife said:
In fairness Drayton is aiming to be like Paultons though it's not there yet. I'm going later this year when everything is open. I think the new coaster will do wonders for the park but I agree.the opening week will probably be a quite one especially if the Wave isn't open.
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I would argue it is the other way around. With Paultons trying to be like Drayton. Drayton have had had a family and kid friendly themepark for far longer than Paultons after all.
 
Just doing more research, here is a better current day photo of the park, along with Drayton Manor house, both photos are exactly the same location. Map on the left is between 1840 - 1880. You can clearly see the 'stable' building there, with a 'P' in the courtyard. The modern day catering stores for the theme park.

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I also noticed how the upper "fountain" on the map is exactly where the cylinder shaped tower is for the modern day hotel They must have known they were building it perfectly in that location. The current drive way appears to be roughtly the same and it would have brought you into the sort of centre courtyard of the house. There is a small stone structure actually north of the hotel as looking at these photos, ill snap a photo when I head to the park some point this week with my son. It is close to where it says spring on the map.

I would love to export the modern day topography data from Google earth and have a go at a quick and dirty basic 3d model of the house, just to see in 3d how the house sits compared to modern day Drayton Manor. Something for the pipeline perhaps, if I get time.

For anyone interested, I am using the excellent side by side viewer of The National Library Of Scotland for these map overlays, can spend hours on there, highly recommend you taking a look. Spent hours today looking at parts of Tamworth and other towns in the UK.
 
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