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Drakelow is part of Blakeshall Common and has historically been known as Cookley Wood; the name ‘Culnan Clif’ appears in a local Anglo-Saxon charter (AD 969). It has been woodland and heath land since at least 1659 (if not much earlier), when a parliamentary survey detailed numbers of oaks on the land. Examination of historic sources shows that the land has never been farmed. As a common, the land was used primarily for grazing or given over to fruit orchards and woodland. After 1755, when the common was enclosed and use denied to the furious poorer parishioners, there was no real change of use, due to the thin sandy soils and marginal nature of the land. The fragile and enigmatic remains of historic land boundaries and track ways, that would help to tell this vital story of the day-to-day existence of the more deprived people of the parish, are rarely preserved but here at Drakelow may be found throughout the site.
Within the 50 acres of the site, the impact on this landscape of the Second World War was minimal, with only the small tunnel mouths being affected by the work beneath.
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