Stainforth was established in the Anglo Saxon period and is recorded in the Domesday Book (1086), as a small settlement of 7 households.

In 1348, Stainforth received a Royal Charter, entitling it to hold a weekly market on Fridays and an annual ten-day fair.

The town briefly thrived as a commercial centre and port and attracted traders from as far afield as the Isle of Axholme, but the market soon slumped as Bawtry grew in importance.

The power station would have been linked by a 40-mile (60 km) pipeline to Barmston in the East Riding of Yorkshire, from where CO2 would have been released into porous layers beneath an impermeable bed of the North Sea as part of a carbon capture and storage scheme.

[6][7][8][9] The colliery and the surrounding area have been used in a number of television series and films, most notably Dalziel and Pascoe and Brassed Off, and more recently Faith.