had briefly moved there during the period. It is thought that Draycott and Church Wilne by this time were one and the same and initially based by Church Wilne, only Draycott being called out in the 1086 survey possibly due to Wilne not liable to tax because of church ownership. Residual traces of earthworks close to the church were found in the late 1960s and middle 1970s as evidence of a deserted medieval village, with possible medieval walls, foundations and pottery unearthed from the ploughed fields adjacent to the church, providing additional proof of extensive occupation. Great Wilne, across the River Derwent to the south, developed at a much later period, and was first recorded in the middle-late 13th century, although of the two Wilne communities ended up being the larger settlement. However, up to the Victorian period, journals recorded as many as 30 houses and a population of 140 in Wilne. It is possible water level issues throughout the Derwent floodplain probably began an exodus of locals towards slightly higher ground alongside a key transportation route, the Roman road. Some early topographic, documentary, cartographic and excavation evidence shows Wilne church may have been enclosed on as many as three sides by medieval meanders of the Derwent. There are several examples of medieval farming with ridge and furrow techniques to the south of Draycott and surrounding Church Wilne. Certainly by the end of the 11th century soon after Domesday, Church Wilne began having individualised records in ecclesiastical and other administration documents. The ownership of the Sawley/Draycott/Church Wilne manors stayed with the diocese for some centuries, and after the Dissolution of the monasteries it was leased to the Stanhope family by the 1540s, of which the Earl of Harrington was their later peerage. William Stanhope (1683 to 1756) was made Earl of Harrington in 1742. His descendants including Charles Stanhope (1844 to 1917), the eighth Earl of Harrington held the manor into the 20th century. Wilne became an ecclesiastical parish in 1822, partitioned from Sawley ancient parish and at the time included Hopwell hamlet, Draycott liberty along with Breaston and Risley chapelries. These were all by 1866 separated out and the civil parish of Draycott and Church Wilne created. Early transport Draycott informally is known as Neddy Town and locals known as Neddies. In earlier modern times, donkey drawn carts from the coalfields of the north hauled this output to the