Treswell is a village in north

Nottinghamshire Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The trad ...

in England. The village is under the administration of Bassetlaw Council and Treswell parish council. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 231, falling to 211 at the 2011 census. Its name is recorded in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

as ''Tireswelle'' and probably came from Anglo-Saxon ''Tīres wella'' = "well or spring belonging to Tīr".

Buildings

The village has a population of 260 living in 83 dwellings. Treswell has one post box, an old fashioned red telephone booth, a bus stop, a petrol and service garage and an active village hall. The village also has a 19th-century

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

church but this recently closed and is being converted into a house. The parish church of St John the Baptist is built in the Perpendicular style. The main structure dates from the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, although it was restored in 1855, the square tower was restored in 1900, and internally the furniture dates from the nineteenth century. It has been a grade I listed building since 1967.

Rampton Secure Hospital Rampton Secure Hospital is a high-security psychiatric hospital near the village of Woodbeck between Retford and Rampton in Nottinghamshire, England. It is one of three high-security psychiatric hospitals in England, alongside Ashworth Hospital ...

is nearby.

History

Treswell has rarely featured in history, but it was the home of Tom Otter, who murdered his wife of one day in a field at Drinsey Nook, near

Saxilby Saxilby is a large village in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England, about north-west from Lincoln, on the A57 road at the junction of the B1241. It is part of the civil parish of Saxilby and Ingleby, which includes the village of ...

in 1805. He was referred to as "Thomas Otter otherwise Temporel." Otter was probably married already, and his new 'wife' was already pregnant; he had also been drinking at the Sun Inn, Saxilby, where the inquest was held. Joseph Rodgers, in ''The Scenery of Sherwood Forest'', refers to Treswell as his origin and the 'Stamford Mercury' reported him as from 'Truswell'. Otter was hung in Lincoln then gibbeted at the spot where he committed the crime, still commemorated in the name of Otter's Bridge Service Station nearby. A number of sinister events were linked to his case, with mementos of the crime disappearing from pubs such as the Drinsey Nook – only to reappear at the scene of the crime. The

gibbet A gibbet is any instrument of public execution (including guillotine, executioner's block, impalement stake, hanging gallows, or related scaffold). Gibbeting is the use of a gallows-type structure from which the dead or dying bodies of cri ...

supposedly collapsed on a workman while being erected, killing him. Years afterwards a dying old man confessed to having witnessed the murder when awoken from a drunken sleep in a field nearby.

Oilfield

Treswell is over the

South Leverton South Leverton is a village and civil parish in Bassetlaw, north Nottinghamshire, England, four miles from Retford. According to the 2001 census it has a population of 478, increasing only marginally to 480 at the 2011 census. A website for the ...

oilfield which runs beneath it, and there are four

nodding donkey A pumpjack is the overground drive for a reciprocating piston pump in an oil well. It is used to mechanically lift liquid out of the well if there is not enough bottom hole pressure for the liquid to flow all the way to the surface. The arr ...

oil pumps over well heads to the north east of the village. The field produces high-grade crude oil, which is taken by road to a collection centre at

Gainsborough Gainsborough or Gainsboro may refer to: Places * Gainsborough, Ipswich, Suffolk, England ** Gainsborough Ward, Ipswich * Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, a town in England ** Gainsborough (UK Parliament constituency) * Gainsborough, New South Wales, ...

, from where it is transferred by rail to be refined at Immingham. Because of its quality, it is used for the production of chemicals and plastics, rather than for fuel. Oil was discovered here in the late 1950s or early 1960s, after Dr Mosaddeq took power in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

and nationalised the oil industry there. Displaced engineers working for British Petroleum returned to the UK, and South Leverton oilfield was one of several which were identified at that time as a result of their exploration skills.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Nottinghamshire Civil parishes in Nottinghamshire Bassetlaw District