It is 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of the town of Harrogate, and forms part of the civil parish of Pannal and Burn Bridge.

Burn Bridge was historically in the township of North Rigton in the ancient parish of Kirkby Overblow in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

[7] The village is now mainly a dormitory for commuters to Harrogate and Leeds, a few Menwith Hill employees and many retired people.

Pannal railway station is the nearest rail link, providing trains to Leeds, and to York via Harrogate, at half-hourly intervals Monday to Sunday.

Originally a commercial planting of softwood, it is now owned by Harrogate Borough Council which maintains it as a local amenity, and is in the process of gradually re-planting it with indigenous trees.

The milldam was fed from Crimple Beck via a goit upstream, and the water ran off via a culvert under the corn mill and returned to the stream near Malthouse Lane bridge.

The attached semicircular gin gang,[14] where a horse turned the grinding mill for the corn, existed until the winter of 2010–2011, when it was demolished to be rebuilt as domestic accommodation.

The malthouse was built c. 1876 by farmer Thomas Hudson, who bought the land for the purpose in that year from landowner Eliza Penelope Bentley of Pannal Hall.

[18] The river does have a history of mink preying on other animals, but there are still mallards, moorhens, herons, kingfishers and grey wagtails, besides more common birds.

Finally in June 2007 there was a one-foot-deep flood in the area after a major but temporary National Grid gas-pipeline-laying operation.

[27][28] In a similar situation at Peckham in 2003, some residents suggested that the process of laying a pipeline had encouraged flooding; however this was denied by the pipelaying company Weeks, and by the Council which had responsibility for overseeing the works.

[29] According to the Natural Gas Forum, the proper procedure when pipelaying is to erect barriers to prevent massive, sudden storm water runoff into streams, when swathes of bare earth are exposed.

[30] Compacted soil from large-scale works can lead to increased runoff and higher peak storm flows into streams.

Close to where Brackenthwaite Lane joins Burn Bridge Road was a long, narrow thatched house in which the Dennison family of farmworkers brought up their 21 children.

[4] This village is bordered on the south and west sides by pasture, which has been at intervals identified as a greenfield site[32] by town planners.