The parish was gifted by William the Conqueror to Robert de Brus of Skelton, an ancestor of Robert the Bruce, the famous Scottish king. De Brus’s son gave it to St. Mary’s Abbey, York, along with Hornby and other lands. It remained in the possession of the St. Mary’s until the dissolution of monasteries, when it was granted by Henry VIII to Charles Brandon, who later became the Duke of Suffolk. The parish then passed through several hands and was finally split up in the early 19th century after the death of Robert Henry Allan, whose family had owned the parish since the early 18th century.