Drake Way

On the corner of Drake Way where it meets Radford Park Road we find the Drake's Drum pub, one of two local hostelries commemorating the area's most celebrated seaman (the other being the Golden Hind, named after Drake's best-known ship, which in turn was originally called the Pelican).

Drake had the vessel renamed in deference to the coat of arms of his friend at Court, Sir Christopher Hatton, who was a major investor in Drake's voyage of circumnavigation.

Curiously, one of the first ships Drake ventured out in, on an individually-organised venture, was called the Dragon, doubtless in deference to his own family name, believed to derive not from the waterfowl but the Anglo-Saxon draca, from the Latin draco meaning dragon.

Several families of Drakes have the wyvern of two-legged dragon on their arms and Drake himself became known to Spaniards as El Draco, 'the dragon', as his notoriety and fame spread. In a fanciful piece of poetic propaganda, Lope de Vega produced the epic poem La Dragontea in 1598. In it he described Drake's last voyage and wretched end - the title page depicting Drake, the dragon, succumbing to the Spanish eagle.