Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth (to distinguish it from Woolsthorpe-by-Belvoir in the same county) is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

in the

South Kesteven South Kesteven is a local government district in Lincolnshire, England, forming part of the traditional Kesteven division of the county. It covers Bourne, Grantham, Market Deeping and Stamford. The 2011 census reports 133,788 people at 1.4 p ...

district of

Lincolnshire Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a Counties of England, county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-we ...

, England. It is best known as the birthplace of

Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton (25 December 1642 – 20 March 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a " natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the g ...

. Woolsthorpe-by-Colsterworth is 94 miles (150 km) north of

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, northwest of the village of Colsterworth on the A1 one of the UK's primary north–south roads. The A1 is the old Great North Road, on which Colsterworth grew. Woolsthorpe is two to three miles from the county boundary with

Leicestershire Leicestershire ( ; postal abbreviation Leics.) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East Midlands, England. The county borders Nottinghamshire to the north, Lincolnshire to the north-east, Rutland to the east, Northamptonshire ...

, and four from

Rutland Rutland () is a ceremonial county and unitary authority in the East Midlands, England. The county is bounded to the west and north by Leicestershire, to the northeast by Lincolnshire and the southeast by Northamptonshire. Its greatest len ...

. Woolsthorpe lies in rural surroundings. It sits on Lower Lincolnshire Limestone, below which are the

Lower Estuarine Series {{Unreferenced, date=December 2009 The Lower Estuarine Series, also called in more modern publications, the Grantham Formation, is a relatively complex but generally thin set of geological strata which are usually considered as a group. It forms a ...

and the

Northampton sand The Northampton Sand Formation, sometimes called the Northamptonshire Sand, is a Middle Jurassic geological formation which is placed within the Inferior Oolite Group. It was formerly worked extensively in Northamptonshire for its ironstone. T ...

of the Inferior Oolite Series of the

Jurassic The Jurassic ( ) is a geologic period and stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately Mya. The Jurassic constitutes the middle period of ...

period. The Northampton Sand here is cemented by

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

and in the 20th century the hamlet was almost surrounded by

strip mining Surface mining, including strip mining, open-pit mining and mountaintop removal mining, is a broad category of mining in which soil and rock overlying the mineral deposit (the overburden) are removed, in contrast to underground mining, in which ...

for

iron ore Iron ores are rocks and minerals from which metallic iron can be economically extracted. The ores are usually rich in iron oxides and vary in color from dark grey, bright yellow, or deep purple to rusty red. The iron is usually found in the ...

. In 1973 the local quarries closed due to competition from imported iron ore. The same year the Great Northern Railway's High Dyke branch line closed it was opened in 1916 to carry iron ore, and lay to the north of the village. There was an unsuccessful attempt to preserve the line. The railway's bridge spanned the A1 until it was removed in 2009 during road junction improvements. Woolsthorpe Manor, Newton's birthplace, is a typical 17th-century yeoman farmer's limestone house, with later

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...

yard buildings. It is owned by the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

and is open to the public.

References

Ordnance Survey Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of 1745. There was a ...

* Geological Survey 1:50 000 Sheet 143.

External links

*
Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth
page in the website of England'
Local Heritage Initiative

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolsthorpe-By-Colsterworth Hamlets in Lincolnshire South Kesteven District