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Monday 25 November 2013

The bloody legend of Bloods Dale

Bloods Dale 002

I GET the impression that many people who live in Drayton don’t really see much of the River Wensum. Busy commuters could be forgiven for not  even realising it’s there, hidden beyond the Low Road while they take the High Road to Norwich. Perhaps the legend of the bloody battle of Bloods Dale can tempt them. Here’s my first draft:

The land climbs steadily from the Wensum between the Low Road and the High Road in Drayton. A footpath bisects the two roads and just to the north lies an idyllic spot at the centre of a grisly legend.

It’s a field, trapezoidal in shape, with the unlikely name of Bloods Dale. And local tradition maintains that this was the site of an epic battle between the Danes and the Saxons in the Dark Ages.

“In a plantation near the road are traces of an entrenchment; and at a short distance is Bloods dale, said to be the scene of a battle in the Saxon era,” wrote one Victorian chronicler.

Notice how we all say “said to be”. No-one has the remotest bit of evidence, but tantalisingly 13 skeletons were dug up a short distance from here by navvies digging the Midland & Great Northern railway line in the 19th century.

All that we can be sure of is that the “Bloods Dale” name has a long lineage. A 15th century document talks of land called “Blodeshille” and “Blodisdale” owned by a Walter Nich of nearby Taverham. The first edition of the OS map from 1884 shows it as a large field running from Low Road to the brow of the hill, while a 1913 edition adds the wood we still see today.

And look again at your current OS Explorer. Bloods Dale is picked out from among all the other dozens of field names the cartographers could have chosen in the area. Well done Ordnance Survey for helping to keep this faint historical whisper alive down the centuries.

Wednesday 20 November 2013

Remembering Drayton Station

Drayton Station Archive 1

WHO’S old and lives in Drayton? I’m writing up Drayton Station and I could do with a bit of local knowledge. The station closed in the late 60s so I need someone with more than a few grey hairs,

If I’ve got things right, Station Road is to the immediate right of this photo, making the building to the right of the footbridge the station itself. It’s the left hand side of the tracks which I need help with. Were there sidings over there? And what are those white gates all about? Was this perhaps an area where cattle were kept before getting on cattle trucks? If you remember Drayton Station in its heyday please email me at sanddsilk@btinternet.com or leave a comment below. Many thanks.