Location

The parish lies along the north east boundary of the Nottinghamshire county and the Lincolnshire border.

It is surrounded by the following local areas:

• Treswell to the north
• Fenton, Kettlethorpe, Laneham and Stokeham to the south
• Torksey to the east
• Headon and Upton to the west.

Rampton and Woodbeck is a wide but flat parish measuring 4.30 miles (6.92 km) by 1.50 miles (2.41 km).

Settlements

The parish consists of two settlements:

• Rampton
• Woodbeck

Landscape

Entrance to Rampton Hospital at Woodbeck

Predominantly, many of the parish residents are clustered around the villages. Outside of these is a scattering of farms, farmhouses and cottages amongst a wider rural setting. Very little wooded areas exist. The Cottam Power Station core buildings and structures are not in the parish, these are however visible from the villages, and its adjacent substation array, coal stockpile and some of the cooling towers are within the boundary. Torksey Viaduct spanning the River Trent is located in the far right corner of the area, and has been converted into a footpath to Torksey.

Toponymy

The toponym "Rampton" is possibly derived from Old English Ramm-tūn, meaning "farmstead where rams are kept".^[4] Woodbeck was named after the farm that was in the location originally, which was located between a 'wood and a beck', the remains of a small forested area lies to the east and a beck runs alongside the area.^[5] The parish was singularly named Rampton until April 2018.^[6]

Rampton

Rampton had an important manor in Norman times. Rampton Hall of the Stanhope and Babington families was built in the reign of Henry VIII and pulled down in 1720. The open fieIds and commons which comprised nearly half the parish was enclosed in 1843. There was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel in the village built in 1857. On the eastern edge of All Saints' churchyard is a mid-16th-century Tudor gateway which once led to Rampton Manor, and was the former home of the Eyre family. It is brick with terracotta panels and is a listed building ornamented with the armorial bearings of the Stanhope, Babington, and Eyre families.^[7] The Eyre manor was demolished in the 20th century.^[5]

The surviving gate to the site of the demolished Rampton Manor.

The Great Central Railway skirted the upper edge of the parish via the Leverton Branch which linked Sheffield and Lincolnshire. The former railway viaduct across the Trent into Lincolnshire was refurbished as a public footpath in 2017. The closest railway station used to be at Cottam which operated between 1850 and 1959.

The village hall had opened in the 1840s as the first Village School, after the opening of Rampton Hospital in 1912 the school needed to expand and relocate with the building of Woodbeck. The former school room became the village hall, the parish council purchasing this in 1995.^[8][9]

Woodbeck

Prior to development, the area was primarily farmland. Woodbeck was named after the local farm which was bought by the Minister of Prisons in 1907. The farmhouse was sold to the Government when the area was chosen for the building of a high security psychiatric hospital. Initially known as Rampton Criminal Lunatic Asylum, building work was started in 1909. The hospital was originally conceived as an annex to Broadmoor with the aim of reducing overcrowding and opened in 1912. As hospital patient numbers increased in the 1920s, a programme of building staff houses was begun. The houses were originally allocated to married staff members with families; unmarried staff were housed in two residential blocks which later opened in 1931.

An increase in the number of staff saw an expansion of the staff club (previously the Woodbeck farmhouse) to include a cricket pavilion (1935) and other sports facilities. In the 1990s the residence blocks were converted into offices and are presently located within the outer perimeter fence of the hospital. The 1990s also saw the sale of many of the houses at Woodbeck to private ownership. The staff club, shop, post office, tennis courts, bowling green and cricket pavilion were demolished to make way for a new control room and entry building on completion of the new perimeter fence in 2003.^[5]

Listed buildings and locations

Several buildings and structures throughout the parish are listed as features of historical interest primarily around Rampton, notably:

• All Saints Church (Grade I)
• Torksey Viaduct (Grade II*)

An ancient moated site to the east of Rampton is registered as a scheduled monument.^[10]