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Hidden East Anglia:

Landscape Legends of Norfolk & Suffolk

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 Norfolk and Suffolk. 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!

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