Willington, Derbyshire
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Willington is a small village not far from Derby in Derbyshire, England, with a population of 2201. It may have existed as far back as the Dark Ages, but it first began to grow with the construction of the Trent-Mersey Canal in 1777, at which time it became a small inland port. The railway arrived in 1838, the station being known as 'Repton and Willington'; the village has always been slightly overshadowed by its more famous neighbour, Repton. The power station was built in the 1950s, and despite closing and being earmarked for housing development, at the time of writing its cooling towers still dominate the skyline for miles around. It formerly had a depot for the Blue Bus service, but this burned down in 1976, taking most of the Blue Buses with it. With the opening of the nearby Toyota factory at Findern, the village has greatly expanded recently, more than doubling in size since World War II.
Although the main line station was closed in the 1960s, a new Willington railway station was opened in 2004 as part of the Ivanhoe Line project to link Leicester and Burton upon Trent. Although the Ivanhoe Line was abandoned, the station remains, and runs two mainline trains a day to Derby.
