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Hidden East Anglia:

Landscape Legends of Eastern England

 

Oliver Cromwell:

Along with many other areas of Britain and Ireland, the erstwhile 'Lord Protector' Oliver Cromwell has left his mark on the landscape of East Anglia. The most common tale, well-evidenced here, usually concerns some hill or mound upon which Cromwell is said to have placed his cannon in order to flatten some stronghold of the Royalists. That his armies often did this is historical fact, in some places actually building such a mound for that purpose. But the legends always seem to have Cromwell there in person, and the guns are being fired over an impossible distance.

 

And Cromwell left other legendary traces behind him as well, as most 'larger-than-life' characters in history seem to have done, whether it be hiding treasure, giving rise to ghost stories, or - as in my home town of Lowestoft (where he really did put in an appearance) - digging ludicrously long secret tunnels for no apparent purpose!

 

           NORFOLK

      SUFFOLK
Bacton ~ Mill Hill Blythburgh ~

Bulcamp Hill

Banningham ~ Cromwell & the snake pit Bungay ~ Cromwell's tunnels
Binham ~ The guns on the hill   Denston ~ Civil War mound
Heydon ~ Cromwell's Oak   Lowestoft ~ Cromwell's tunnels
Newton by Castle Acre ~ Winchester Hill   Mildenhall ~ Cromwell's treasure
Norwich ~ Cromwell's ghostly horses   Theberton ~ The Armada Beacon
Oulton ~ Cromwell's men  

Wantisden ~

Cromwell's Mount
South Acre ~ Cromwell's Camp      
Swaffham ~ Cromwell's Burial Ground      
Thetford ~ Cromwell & the castle      
Weeting ~ Pepper Hill      
Wormegay ~ Cromwell's guns      
 

               CAMBRIDGESHIRE

             ESSEX
Kingston ~

Oliver Cromwell's Hole

Cromwell's crack

  Coggeshall ~ Marks Hall lakes
Maldon ~ Cromwell's Well
March ~ Cromwell's horses      
Murrow ~ Ghost Hill
Parson Drove ~ Cromwell's hill      
Stuntney ~ Cromwell's cannon      

                                                   

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