It is situated near Richmond on the banks of the River Swale, approximately 12 miles (19 km) north west from the county town of Northallerton.

The hamlet is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Asebi, whose lands belonged to Count Alan of Brittany.

He had granted the lordship of the manor to Thor at the time of the Norman Conquest, but it had passed to Enisant Mussard, Constable of Richmond Castle, by 1086.

Edward VI granted the manor to Edmund Boughtell upon his accession to the Crown, but this was reverted in 1557 to Ralph Gower.

The important Anglo-Saxon stone Easby Cross of 800-820 is currently in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, but the church, from whose walls three of the four fragments were recovered in 1931, displays a plaster cast.