[2][3] Staythorpe recorded twelve villagers at the time of the Domesday Survey,[4] the core settlement was for centuries based around Pingley Lane, which branched off the Nottingham-Newark route.

[9] The housing development was commissioned by its successor British Electricity Authority, the initials (BEA) phonetically forming the name of the estate Behay Gardens.

[10] The Hugh's Close estate was built in the middle 1990s,[11] and was the only new development in the parish after Behay Gardens, which has since been sold off to the general public.

The nearest National Rail station to the town is 1 mile (1.6 km) away at Rolleston; it lies adjacent to Southwell Racecourse.

East Midlands Railway provides a two-hourly service between Crewe and Newark Castle; direct trains also connect to Leicester, Lincoln and Nottingham.