Visitors leaving Staunton by the Heathend drive may notice, before reaching the public highway, that they pass over a narrow stream. This stream marks the boundary between the counties of Leicestershire and Derbyshire.
Insignificant as it is now, in Roman times this was a wide and navigable river, used to carry lead ore and other raw materials out to the coast and to the empire beyond. Settlements along its length flourished and then faded as the river silted up and became impassable.
As Pliny tells us, it also divided two large and warlike tribes, the Dumellii and the Gidlovii, who each summer engaged in a war of attrition between themselves and their Roman overlords. The cause of their disagreement was long forgotten, and yet each year they took up arms, the ferocity of their hatred unabated.