Woodhall Spa is a civil parish and village in the East Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England about 6 miles (10 km) south-west of Horncastle and about 15 miles (24 km) south-east-east of Lincoln

Woodhall Spa came into existence as a result of John Parkinson originally from Old Bolingbroke, a local village. His dream was to sink a coal mine, build a city and plant a forest. The coal mine was sunk in 1821 after earlier attempts in 1811–12 to try and find coal in the local Jurassic shales however no coal was found even though the surface soils suggested so. The miners working in the mine reputedly took down lumps of coal to bring back up and show when the likelihood of finding anything started to diminish and the mine was finally abandoned after boring 368m.

At 159m the miners had encountered fissure of saline water and after it was abandoned the shaft filled with water and overflowed into a ditch; it was noticed that cattle drinking from the ditch were cured of their ailments and since it was considered that what was good for animals must be good for people too and thus the spa was founded.

The reputation of the curative properties spread and by 1839, the then Lord of the Manor, Thomas Hotchkin, had built a pump room, bathhouse and hotel, later caller the 'Victoria Hotel', and had the water analysed. The water was found to contain six times more iodine and bromine than any other known mineral water. The coming of the railways in 1855 brought increasing popularity and an elegant spa town with hotels and guest houses on wide tree-lined avenues, largely designed by Richard Adolphus Came, grew up around the original facilities. He stated in his designs that none of the roads shall be 'streets' which is still true today and the new roads built since have also been lined with various trees. The Victoria Hotel and the Spa Baths were greatly modified by the Syndicate, a group of investors including the Lord Chief Justice and Lord Iddesleigh, in 1887. The Victoria Hotel burned down on Easter Day 1920 and the Royal Hotel and Winter Gardens was destroyed by an ariel parachute mine in 1943. Colonel SV Hotchkin MC and CK Hutchison redesigned the Gold Course to its present state in the '20s however the popularity of the Spa started to decline after the First World War. The railway closed down in 1971 with the rest of the Boston to Lincoln line and the station was demolished soon after. Much of the village's Victorian elegance remains, but times changed, the railway closed down, the use of the baths declined over the years and finally closed when the well collapsed in 1983; however Woodhall Spa still remains a popular holiday and retirement resort today. The English Golf Union bought the golf course in 1995 and built its national headquarters there. Today it is ranked among one of the best courses in the country and world.

The heyday of Woodhall Spa was recorded by a local photographer John Wield and many of his photographs are displayed in the award winning 'Woodhall Spa Cottage Museum'.

One of the earliest hotels to be built in the village, 'The Woodhall Spa Hotel', formally the 'Eagle Lodge Hotel', which opened in 1882, survives today.

In 2006, the owners of 'The Golf Hotel' recreated the history of Woodhall spa by opening a new day spa called the 'Aqua Sante Spa' with the exact bromine and iodine content in its water as in the original waters.

The Pinewoods, a 7.8 ha woodland owned by the Woodland Trust, was originally scrub land which was later incorporated into the grounds of the Victoria Hotel. It lies at the heart of the village and has long been a big attraction for visitors, particularly in the spring when the daffodils and rhododendrons are in flower. In recent years access to the wood's have been restricted, due to a large number of sexual assaults carried out in the woods between 1989-2001.

The Manor House in Woodhall Spa appears to have been built in the 18th century (Lincolnshire by Nikolaus Pevsner, ISBN 0 14 071027 2 p.881). In the first half of the 19th century it was known as Woodhall Lodge or simply The Lodge. It was occupied by several generations of the Hotchkin family, originally from Rutland. Thomas Hotchkin (1774 - 1843) died in the building in June 1843 (Stamford Mercury, 9th June 1843). In 1861 it was in the possession of his grandson Thomas John Stafford Hotchkin who described himself in a Militia Statement of Qualification dated 24th April 1861 as Thomas John Stafford Hotchkin of Woodhall Lodge, Horncastle. By the 1880s it had become known as The Manor House. TJS Hotchkin lived there until his death aged 52 in 1891 and his widow Mary remained in residence until the marriage in 1906 of their only son Stafford Vere Hotchkin to Dorothy Arnold whereupon she moved out to the new, purpose-built Dower House just down the road to enable her son and his new wife to move into The Manor House which was then substantially extended, the work being completed in 1909. The Manor House remained in the hands of the Hotchkin family until 1965 when Neil Hotchkin, Stafford's son, sold the property to the National Farmer's Union who renamed it Agriculture House and used it as their regional HQ until 1992 when it was sold again and became once more The Manor House. More recently it has been used commercially as office accommodation.

The Kinema in the Woods situated in the centre of the Pinewoods is one of the treasures of Woodhall Spa and is completely unique. Housed in a converted cricket pavilion, when it opened in 1922 it was one of the first cinemas in Britain. It is one of the few cinemas in the country to still employ back projection and also offers regular entertainment on an original Compton Captain Organ. It is located next to the now derelict Spa Baths and opposite the site of the former Victoria Hotel.