Geoff's fresh eye discovers unknown Shropshire battle

They include details of a previously unknown battle – or rather skirmish – near the Shropshire town which has in the past been placed at the non-existent 'Draiton' in Herefordshire.

"I've always been interested in history, and wherever I end up in the country I always end up looking into the local history," said Geoff Turner.

"I have lived just outside Market Drayton for 17 years. I found a reference in an old book of a skirmish which it said happened in Market Drayton in the Civil War, but I couldn't find anything else about it. I thought I would dig a bit deeper, and the deeper I dug, the more I found.

"Nobody has written any of this down. It would be silly for me to do all this research and not write it down for people in the future."

He has compiled the documentary evidence, along with a narrative for context, in a book called 'Market Drayton's Civil War' which is available from Amazon for £10.

Instead of relying on old and on occasion wildly inaccurate transcriptions he has looked at scans of primary source documents and transcribed them afresh.

"I used to do historical demonstrations of quill pen writing, so I'm quite good at reading 17th century handwriting.

"Probably the most exciting thing I found is that Prince Rupert, the nephew of Charles I, led a cavalry charge through the town of Market Drayton. I have not seen that anywhere. One of the things I did look at was Prince Rupert's journal, which still exists in the Bodleian Library. I knew he was near the area. He mentions Drayton in there a couple of times."

Separately he has found a reference to a skirmish at "Draiton in the County of Hereford" in a letter which was printed in a Parliamentary pamphlet.

"There is no town of 'Draiton' in Herefordshire. The person who published the pamphlet was in London and may not have been aware of local geography. The chap who wrote the letter on which the account was based lived in Herefordshire."

Geoff, who lives in Moreton Say, judges that the surrounding evidence points to this incident being at Market Drayton and says while it might have been pure propaganda, certain details ring true.

"The information is only in one source, so it may have happened, or it might not have happened."

As for Market Drayton's Civil War experience, he says: "At various times troops from both sides were stationed in and around Market Drayton. There was an attempt by the Royalists to fortify the town in 1643 but the Parliamentarians from Nantwich attacked before the fortifications were built.

"Generally Market Drayton got off fairly lightly, because it was never garrisoned by one side or the other. It was one of the few market towns in Shropshire that was still active. Where you had troops garrisoning a town the market would be completely disrupted but the one at Market Drayton would be one of the few still running throughout the war."

As part of his researches he has transcribed the town's parish registers for the relevant years.

"People did die – certainly in the attack in 1643 some people died – but there is no obvious reference to them being buried in the parish register. I'm not sure of the reason. Maybe with a troop of soldiers from somewhere else they took their dead bodies with them."

Geoff's book covers the period 1642 to 1649 and he is now working on a follow up work taking things up to 1651 including the Great Fire of Market Drayton in that year.

And more revelations and discoveries are likely.

"I'm finding lots more documents nobody seems to know about."