Drakelow is a village and civil parish[1] in South Derbyshire, in Derbyshire, England. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) south of Burton on Trent. The population of the civil parish including Caldwell and Cauldwell had at 2011 Census was 249.[2]

Drakelow
Drakelow Hall in about 1880
Drakelow is located in Derbyshire
Drakelow
Drakelow
Location within Derbyshire
Population249 (2011)
OS grid referenceSK246196
Civil parish
  • Drakelow
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townBURTON ON TRENT
Postcode districtDE15
PoliceDerbyshire
FireDerbyshire
AmbulanceEast Midlands
List of places
UK
England
Derbyshire
52°46′26″N 1°38′10″W / 52.774°N 1.636°W / 52.774; -1.636

Geography and history

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Some of the land is lower flood plain but most occupies gentle slopes, all on the east bank of the River Trent.

Drakelow, whose name means 'Dragon's Mound', is mentioned in Domesday Book, but was deserted later during the Middle Ages. A chronicler at the nearby Burton Abbey, writing in the early twelfth century, claimed that this desertion took place because of supernatural events that had driven the residents away – specifically, attacks of two undead villagers from nearby Stapenhill.[3]

Drakelowe Hall or Drakelow Hall was the principal residence, and was home to the Gresley Baronets, but this was replaced by Drakelow Power Station and in turn its last cooling towers were demolished in September 2006.[4]

Drakelow Power Station

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In 2005, the electricity company E.ON was given permission to build a new power station on the site of the previous. The proposed combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) is rated at 1,200 MW, and would provide sufficient power for 1,000,000 homes.[5]

Planning permission for upgraded plant as such to reopen a power station was granted in 2007, with a condition that combined heat and power capability would be built into the plant should a customer come forward that was economically viable. This consent was twice extended until October 2015, and a grid connection has been secured until 2014, as of November 2013.[6][7]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Drakelow Parish Meeting – Serving the people of Drakelow". Retrieved 9 April 2023.
  2. ^ "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 21 March 2016.
  3. ^ The episode is discussed in J. Blair, 'The dangerous dead in early medieval England', in Early medieval studies in memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. S. Baxter et al. (Aldershot, 2009), pp. 539–560. A translation and discussion of the source is available online at http://turbulentpriests.group.shef.ac.uk/revenants-revisited/
  4. ^ "Green light for new power station". BBC. 17 October 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  5. ^ "Drakelow CCGT". E.ON UK plc. 2005. Archived from the original on 11 October 2007. Retrieved 23 February 2022.
  6. ^ "CHURCH-GRESLEY, Derbyshire". The National Gazetteer of Great Britain and Ireland. 1868. Retrieved 23 February 2022 – via Genuki.
  7. ^ "Drakelow CCGT". E.ON UK plc. 2016. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 23 February 2022.