Wilford is a delightfully picturesque and secluded village on the banks of the river Trent, about a mile from the town of Nottingham; and though so short a distance from a populous manufacturing district, it yet retains all those rural characteristics which poets, and topographers delighted to describe centuries ago. Sir Juckes Clifton, Baronet, of Clifton Hall, is the lord of the manor; his ancestors have been seated at Clifton, two miles’ distant from Wilford, ever since the reign of Henry the Third; but they held lands in this district long before that period. Sir Gervase Clifton was created a baronet in the ninth year of James the First. Wilford was anciently a Roman station, and some years since many Roman coins were discovered there, most of which were of the latter emperors. It was an eminent manor in the time of Edward the Confessor; and “did belong,” says Thoreton, “to the famous Godes the Countess” When the great survey under William the Conqueror was made, his natural son, William Peveril, governor of Nottingham Castle, had possessions there; and the village in those days had a “priest and a church.” The population is now about 600. The present rector (the Rev. Thomas Thorp) was instituted in 1819 ; and the annual value of the living, according to the report of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, is £574. The church, which is dedicated to St. Wilfrid, presents, to the north-east, an interesting and handsome appearance; but the southern side is disfigured by an unsightly porch, and several pieces of patchwork, which the hand of “modern improvement” has introduced. It has a low tower and clerestory, a rather spacious nave and aisle, and a good chancel, which, as the village chronicle says, was “beautified by the Rev. Mr. Carter, rector of this parish who also founded and endowed a charity school, and upon a flat stone in the north aisle, no further record on it being discernible. The churchyard is sheltered by a range of noble elm trees; and the silvery Trent flows close past this hallowed enclosure with a rushing stream.