Manor
The Domesday Book of 1086 does not list Drayton separately. At that time the land was part of the Bishop of Lincoln's estate of Dorchester. The village developed as a subsidiary of Dorchester. Upon the dissolution of the monasteries Dorchester Abbey surrendered its lands to The Crown and Drayton remained with the Dorchester estate. By the 18th century the Earl of Abingdon was the principal landowner. In the 19th century the family still held the largest acreage, but Trinity College, Oxford had also become a significant landowner in the parish. Most of the land of the parish was farmed on an open field system until it was enclosed in 1861.
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