[1] The village is mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to Earl Hugh of Chester and having 34 ploughlands.

[5] The village name derives from the Old English Esa-ingtūn; literally the farm or settlement of Esa's people.

[7] Historically part of the North Riding of Yorkshire, the village was transferred to the new county of Cleveland in 1974.

The renaming avoided confusion with the station at Easington, County Durham, also on the North Eastern Railway.

The station closed on the eve of the Second World War and never reopened although the line remains a freight-only railway to Boulby Mine.