Willington, Derbyshire

Infobox UK place
country = England
static_

static_image_caption=St Michael's parish church, Willington
latitude = 52.854
longitude = -1.565
map_type = Derbyshire
official_name = Willington
population = 2700
shire_district = South Derbyshire
shire_county = Derbyshire
region = East Midlands
constituency_westminster =
post_town = DERBY
postcode_district =DE65
postcode_area = DE
dial_code =
os_grid_reference = SK293285

Willington is a village in the district of South Derbyshire, in the East Midlands region of England. The village's population is approximately 2700 (2007).

Geography

Willington is situated on the River Trent approximately halfway between the town of Burton-on-Trent in Staffordshire and the city of Derby. It is situated at the crossroads of the north-south B5008 (for Repton and Findern), and the east-west A5132 (former B5009, from Hilton to Swarkestone). The A5132 carried a lot of Nottingham - Stoke traffic before the A50 road was opened in September 1997.

History

The meaning of the name Willington is the Old English "tun" (homestead or farm) among the willows. [Ekwall|520] In the Domesday Book, the village was called "Willetune" or "Willentune", and the land belonged to Ralph Fitzhubert"Domesday Book: A Complete Transliteration". London: Penguin, 2003. p.752 ISBN 0-14-143994-7] [Ekwall|520] and was an agricultural village on the floodlands of the Trent. The village is recorded as "Wilintun" in "c." 1150 and as "Wyliton" in 1230. [Ekwall|520]

In the 17th century, Willington became the highest navigable port on the Trent. It first began to grow from a population of 477 with the construction of the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1777 the same year Bass beer in Burton was started, at which time it became a small inland port and a village with four public houses: The Railway (which was later demolished), "The Rising Sun", "The Green Man" and "The Green Dragon", all selling locally brewed beers from Burton upon Trent for the many Irish canal navvys.

The railway arrived in 1838, the station being known as 'Repton and Willington' and brought the scholars to nearby Repton School. Although the main-line station was closed in 1964, a new station was re-opened in the 1990s as part of the (incomplete) Ivanhoe Line project to link Leicester & Burton-on-Trent and runs mainline trains to Derby, Birmingham and beyond. The village's population increased to 708 by 1940. Trentside Cottage, "Bargate Lane" is the oldest cottage in the village. A cedar tree, at least 800 years old lies on the site of the now-demolished 'Potlocks Farm', on "Twyford Road" in the village. The bridge over the Trent was opened on August 7 1839, being the only one between Swarkestone and Burton.

In 1995, the train station was re-opened at a cost of £565,000 funded by money from the EU.

Local industry

A former cheese factory in 1920 became a reclaimed aluminium processing plant in 1964 dominating the southern part of the village for twenty years and it was hoped that aluminium car engines would be made nearby for the Toyota Manufacturing U.K. (TMUK). The site is now closed and the land for sale.

Due to the opening of the nearby Toyota car factory (on the A38/A50) in 1992 between Willington (on the former Derby airfield at Burnaston) and Findern, the village has prospered and expanded since the 1980s.

Local shops include a post office/newsagent, florist, Co-op supermarket, deli, wools and yarns, beautician, hairdresser, hardware and DIY, general store, pharmacist, a Chinese take-away and the afore-mentioned three pubs.

Willington can also boast having an engineering firm, a large doctors practice, a church and baptist chapel and the SOON missionary HQ, a large modern primary school and nearby in Etwall (within Willington's catchment area) an expanding secondary school, John Port School.

Willington Power Station

In the 1950s, two coal-fired power stations were built on a site off Twyford Road, between Willington and Findern. The stations were privatised and sold off to National Power in the early 1990s and eventually closed in the mid 1990s. Although most of the stations were demolished at the turn of the millennium, the five imposing cooling towers continue to dominate the skyline of the local area. The [http://www.derelicte.co.uk/willington-power-station site] is earmarked for a large residential development, pending the results of a public inquiry. The construction plans have been met with local opposition, perhaps due to the site's proximity to the River Trent's flood plain.

In the mid 1990s, a pair of peregrine falcons nested in one of the site's huge cooling towers. Unlike many bird of prey breeding sites, this was widely publicised because of its impregnable location.

Bus company

[http://tony3972.mysnaps.org.uk/c582303.html Blue Bus Services] operated a depot on "Repton Road" from 1922, but the entire Blue Buses fleet was destroyed by a fire at the depot on 5th January 1976. The 'Saxon Grove' residential estate was built on the site in the late 1980s.

Alumni

John Wetton of rock band Asia was born in Willington in 1949.

Nature reserve

Part of the former ARC owned (and back-filled with the power station waste ash) gravel pits at the southern edge of the village adjacent to the River Trent has now become a wetland nature reserve managed by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust and developed with the aid of the Environment Agency.

Views of the nature reserve

References

External links

* [http://www.derbyshire-peakdistrict.co.uk/willington.htm Discover Derbyshire]
* [http://www.willington-derbys.org.uk Information on Willington's two power stations]
* [http://www.urbanassault.t83.net/#/willingtonpowerstation/4528244150/ Exploring Willington Power Station]
* [http://www.derbyphotos.co.uk/areas_p_z/willington.htm Pictures]
* [http://www.willingtonfc.co.uk Football club]
* [http://www.real-music-club.com/Venues.html Folk music club]