Church Wilne Deserted Medieval Settlement, Derbyshire

The project aimed at securing and enhancing the excavation archive relating to a deserted medieval village at Church Wilne, Derbyshire (SK 449318). The work was funded by English Heritage through the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund and was managed on behalf of Trent & Peak Archaeology by David Knight. Work on the site archive was conducted by Eileen Appleton and Panagiota Markoulaki (Trent & Peak Archaeology) between April and July 2009. The small medieval village of Church Wilne was located on marginal land in the broad alluvial floodplain of the River Derwent, close to its confluence with the River Trent and several kilometres upstream of the confluence of the Trent with the Rivers Soar and Erewash. All that survives today is the parish church of St Chad's. This is an isolated building, located some 200m north of the modern river. The church may originally have been enclosed on three sides by a meander of the Derwent, the medieval course of which may be reconstructed from topographic, documentary, cartographic and excavation evidence. The last dwellings in the village were demolished in the 1960s, while the area adjacent to the church was converted after quarrying to a large reservoir (St Chad's Water) within a water sports centre.