Drakelow is a hamlet in

Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...

, England. It is one of the ancient townships of the manor of

Wolverley Wolverley is a village; with nearby Cookley (1 mi northeast), it forms a civil parish in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire, England. It is 2 miles north of Kidderminster and lies on the River Stour and the Staffordshire a ...

, whose extent was similar to that of the modern civil parish of Wolverley &

Cookley Cookley is a village in the Wyre Forest District of Worcestershire, England, a few miles to the north of Kidderminster. Also, a few miles south-west of Stourton, Staffordshire and is close to the villages of Kinver and Wolverley. It lies ...

. It is located approximately northwest of Wolverley and the same distance southwest of

Blakeshall Blakeshall is a hamlet in Worcestershire, England. It is one of the ancient townships of the manor of Wolverley, whose extent was similar to that of the modern civil parish of Wolverley & Cookley. Early history The Sebright family held land i ...

Geography and history

During the Iron Age, Drakelow was the location of a small multivallate hillfort which stood on a promontory known as Drakelow Hill. The name 'Drakelow', meaning 'Dragon's Mound', is of

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

origin, the locality having been well settled by that time. The name appeared in a document in 1240 as 'Brakelowe', but the present spelling was used in a Will in 1582. In the nineteenth century William Hancocks, owner of the Blakeshall Estate, built a 'Swiss' style village on the sandstone hills above Drakelow. During the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

the

Drakelow Tunnels Drakelow Tunnels are a former underground military complex beneath the Blakeshall Estate north of Kidderminster, Worcestershire, covering , with a total length of around . They were originally built as a Second World War shadow factory, and we ...

shadow factory A shadow is a dark area on a surface where light from a light source is blocked by an object. In contrast, shade occupies the three-dimensional volume behind an object with light in front of it. The cross-section of a shadow is a two-dimensional ...

was built on the old village site, and subsequently developed during the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

to be a fall-back government centre. The main entrance to the Tunnels during wartime was on the land behind Baxter Cottage, seen in the photograph. The sandstone hills at Drakelow had a number of rock houses similar to those on nearby

Kinver Edge Kinver Edge is a high heath and woodland escarpment just west of Kinver, about four miles west of Stourbridge, and four miles north of Kidderminster, and is on the border between Worcestershire and Staffordshire, England. It is now owned by th ...

.Wyre Forest District Official Guide 1983/84, copy held by Kidderminster Public Library The remains of some of these rock houses may be seen from the path leading east from Baxter Cottage. The Baxter Monument, a stone obelisk, is also located on a sandstone hill north of Drakelow.

References

Villages in Worcestershire {{Worcestershire-geo-stub