MARKET

See also:

• DRAYTON, MICHAEL (1563-1631)

DRAYTON  , a market town in the Newport division of Shropshire, England, on the river Tern and the Shropshire Union canal, 178 m . N.W. from London . Pop . (civil parish of Drayton-in-Hales, Igor), 5167 . The Wellington-Crewe line of the Great Western railway is here joined by a branch into Staffordshire of the North Staffordshire railway . The church of St Mary has Norman remains but is modernised by restoration . The town is a centre of agricultural trade, and there are large iron foundries . It is in the parish of Drayton-in-Hales, a name sometimes applied to it; and it is also known as Drayton Magna . It is an ancient town, of which the manor was held successively by the abbots of St Ebrulph in Normandy and Combermere in Cheshire . On Blore Heath, 3 M. east'in Staffordshire, Audley Cross marks a great battle in the Wars of the Roses (1459), in which the Yorkists were successful and Lord Audley fell .