The first element is less clear: it is either Old English stocc "tree-trunk" or stoc "village, outlying farmstead" (as seen in Stoke-on-Trent and Stoke Poges.

[4] Today West Stockwith is a village with one main street and a few side roads, one cul-de-sac of former farm-workers' houses and another the former vicarage.

There are signs still of its industrial past with the well-preserved Water Lanes which allow access from the road to the banks of the River Trent, even via a ginnel under part of one property.

The river was once home to many of the workers and there were once more than eleven public houses, many in the front rooms of today's cottages, which still contain evidence of their past use.

The Hospital Day which was traditionally held in July to raise money by children dressing up and decorating floats, usually farmers' wagons, is no more.