Thwing is located in the Yorkshire Wolds about 8 miles (13 km) west of the North Sea coast at Bridlington.

[2] The village has a 12th-century Norman Church (All Saints),[3] and a pub known as The Falling Stone,[4] previously The Rampant Horse, before 1976 the Raincliffe Arms.

[13] The Falling Stone pub name is a reference to the Wold Cottage Meteorite, which fell nearby on 13 December 1795.

[16] Thwing is thought to mean 'narrow strip of land', deriving from thvengr (Old Scandinavian) or thweng (Old English).

[17][18] There is evidence of significant human activity in the area beginning in at least the Neolithic Era: at Paddock Hill 0.6 miles (1 km) north of Octon, evidence of a henge dating from the late Neolithic has been discovered from crop marks and by excavation.

The site was re-used during the Anglo-Saxon period and contained houses including a grubenhaus and large rectangular hall; there was a cemetery with at least 130 inhumations east of the Bronze Age earthwork.

[21] Two tumuli have been recorded and excavated in the northern part of the parish: the large mound named 'Willy Howe';[22][m 2] and another barrow, about 0.5 mi (0.8 km) to its west, in fields south of the village of Wold Newton.

[29] Other evidence of pre-historic settlement and activity include polished stone axes[30] and flint implements including arrowheads, chisels and knives,[31] as well as flint cores, tranchet axes and microliths;[32] pebble maceheads;[33] and bronze or Iron Age pottery.