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. Mortimer is made to say: “England, from Trent to Severn hitherto, By south and east is to my part assign’d: All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore, And all the fertile land within that bound, To Owen Glendower; and dear Coz, to you The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.” The “dear Coz” Hotspur, evidently displeased with his share, replies, pointing to the map;— “Methinks my moiety, north from Burton here, In quantity equals not one of yours: See how this river comes me cranking in, And cuts me from the best of all my land, A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle out. _I’ll have the current in this place damm’d up;_ _And here the smug and silver Trent shall run_ _In a new channel fair and evenly:_ _It shall not wind with such a deep indent,_ _To rob me of so rich a bottom here.”_