Toponymy

The toponym Willington is derived from the Old English tun (homestead or farm) among the willows.^[3] In the Domesday Book, the village is called Willetune or Willentune, and the land was held by Ralph FitzHubert^[3][4] and was an agricultural village on the flood plain of the Trent. The village is recorded as Wilintun in about 1150 and as Wyliton in 1230.^[3]

Manors

Willington, in the hundred of Morleston and Litchurch, comprised two estates as recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086, one held by the king in demesne, the other by Ralph FitzHubert:

Later history

In the 17th century Willington became the highest navigable port on the Trent.^{[citation needed]} It first began to grow from a population of 477^{[citation needed]} 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 navvies.

The railway was built in 1838, the railway station being called Repton and Willington railway station and brought the scholars to nearby Repton School. The main-line station was closed in 1964 but a new station was opened in the 1990s as part of the (incomplete) Ivanhoe Line project to link Leicester and Burton-on-Trent and runs mainline trains to Derby, Birmingham and beyond. The village's population increased to 708 by 1940^{[citation needed]}. Trentside Cottage, Bargate Lane is the oldest cottage in the village.^{[citation needed]} A 200-year-old Cedar of Lebanon^[8] lies on the site of the now-demolished Potlock's Farm on Twyford Road in the village.

The bridge over the Trent was opened on 7 August 1839, being the only one between Swarkestone and Burton. To commemorate the centenary of the abolishing of the bridge toll in 1898, an annual raft race has been held since 1998 from nearby Newton Solney along the River Trent to Willington's bridge.^[9]

In 1995 Willington railway station was re-opened at a cost of £565,000 funded by the EU. Some scenes from the 2018 film "Get Gone" were filmed at Willington train station.^[10]

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 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 cooling towers continue to dominate the skyline of the local area. The site^[14] was earmarked for a large residential development, but the application was rejected and in 2011 permission was granted for a new power station to be built on the site.

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.

The power station was also the subject of a short documentary by Channel 4 titled "Drones in Forbidden Zones".^[15]

Bus company

Blue Bus Services (Tailby & George Ltd) operated a depot on Repton Road from 1922. The company was privately owned until December 1973 when it was sold to Derby Corporation. Tragically, two years later on 5 January 1976, almost the entire original Blue Buses fleet was destroyed by a fire at the depot. The Saxon Grove and Tailby Drive residential estate was built on the site in the late 1980s (Named after Percy Tailby, co-owner of the Blue Bus Service).

Views of the nature reserve

• Cedar southwest of power station