[1] It is situated approximately 5 miles (8 km) west from Grantham, and adjoins the county border with Leicestershire.

[6] Of the destruction Kelly's Directory wrote in 1885: "the original church of St. James, of which some fragments of the tower remain, was burned down by soldiers of the Parliamentary Army who bivouacked there during the siege of Belvoir Castle".

[12][13] Approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) north from Woolsthorpe is the deserted medieval village of Stenwith, defined by moat, ditch, enclosure, hollow way and croft (homestead with land) earthworks.

It was part of the manor of Barrowby and comprised 21 households, 2 smallholders and 19 freemen, with 4 ploughlands, 15 acres (0.1 km2) of meadow and one mill.

It was in the wapentake of Winnibriggs and Threo, the petty sessional division of Spittlegate, the union and county court district of South Grantham, and in the Archdeaconry and Diocese of Lincoln.

[7] In 1879 the Stanton Iron Company began quarrying for marl ironstone at Woolsthorpe, on land leased from the Duke of Rutland.

At first ironstone was transported by trains run by the Stanton company via this branch to the Grantham to Nottingham mainline.

Horses were used to pull the wagons on the upper section of the tramway until the first steam locomotive arrived in November 1883.

Within the village were a boot-and-shoe maker, two shopkeepers-cum-carriers, a shoemakers with post office, a butcher-cum-grocer, two carpenters, two tailors, two shopkeepers, a blacksmith, a baker-cum-beer retailer, two farmers, a butcher-cum-farmer, and a homoeopathist.

Living in the village was a gamekeeper and a farm bailiff, both in the employ of the Duke of Rutland, and a surgeon medical officer who was public vaccinator for the Denton district and Grantham Union.

The living is a rectory, tithe rent-charge £80, net yearly value £230, including 38 acres of glebe with residence, in the gift of the Duke of Rutland K.G.

[25][26] Pevsner mentions the wharf on the Grantham Canal which was used to unload stone, and "charming lock cottages".