Woburn Abbey, the seat of the dukes of Bedford, was closed in 1953, after a debt of some £8 million drove the duke to suicide, and reopened in 1955 as an amusement park by his son, who succeeded him as duke and died in November 2002 in
Santa Fe, New Mexico (U.S.A.). When asked about the unfavorable comments by other nobles when he turned the family home into a theme park, he said, "I do not relish the scorn of the peerage, but it is better to be looked down on than overlooked."