Repton and Its Neighbourhood
9781465682970
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Repton is a village in the County of Derby, four miles east of Burton on Trent, seven miles south west of Derby, and gives its name to the deanery, and with Gresley, forms the hundred, or division, to which it belongs. The original settlers showed their wisdom when they selected the site: on the north flowed “the smug and silver Trent,” providing them with water; whilst on the south, forests, which then, no doubt, extended in unbroken line from Sherwood to Charnwood, provided fuel; and, lying between, a belt of green pasturage provided fodder for cattle and sheep. The hand of time and man, has nearly destroyed the forests, leaving them such in name alone, and the remains of forests and pasturage have been “annexed.” Repton Commonstill remains in name, in 1766 it was enclosed by Act of Parliament, and it and the woods round are no longer “common.” Excavations made in the Churchyard, and in the field to the west of it, have laid bare many foundations, and portions of Anglo Saxon buildings, such as head stones of doorways and windows, which prove that the site of the ancient Monastery, and perhaps the town, was on that part of the village now occupied by church, churchyard, vicarage and grounds, and was protected by the River Trent, a branch of which then, no doubt, flowed at the foot of its rocky bank. At some time unknown, the course of the river was interfered with. Somewhere, above or about the present bridge at Willington, the river divided into two streams, one flowing as it does now, the other, by a very sinuous course, crossed the fields and flowed by the town, and so on till it rejoined the Trent above Twyford Ferry. Traces of this bed can be seen in the fields, and there are still three wide pools left which lie in the course of what is now called the “Old Trent.” There is an old tradition that this alteration was made by Hotspur. In Shakespeare’s play of Henry IV. Act III. Hotspur, Worcester, Mortimer, and Glendower, are at the house of the Archdeacon at Bangor. A map of England and Wales is before them, which the Archdeacon has divided into three parts.
