The old Roman road from Ribchester to Ilkley passes to the south of the modern civil parish, with the remains of a 4th-century Romano-British farmstead known as Bomber Camp located just over the boundary with Bracewell and Brogden.

[4] The layout of this linear village, with properties facing the main street and tenement plots running down to a back lane, is common of many established in the tenth century.

[6] In the 1140s, William de Percy II, granted the Dudland area, in the southwest of the parish, to the Cistercian monks who founded Sawley Abbey.

[9] In 1612 a village resident, Jennet Preston, was tried at the Lancashire witch trials, accused of causing the death of Thomas Lister by witchcraft.

[5] The Pennine Bridleway National Trail and Ribble Way pass through the parish, with former crossing Gisburne Park and the latter following roads through the village.

[10][11] Gisburn was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, within the Deanery of Craven, and Wapentake of Staincliffe.

The Lister family produced a number of Members of Parliament for Clitheroe and later Barons Ribblesdale, and had been previously based at Arnoldsbiggin (Westby Hall).

Although the manorof Gisburne was first acquired by the Lister's in 1614, the family only moved to this site, then called Lower Hall, in 1706.

[19] In the graveyard lies buried one of England's greatest writers of hymn tunes, Francis Duckworth (1862–1941).

His most famous tune is "Rimington", to which several hymns including Jesu Shall Reign Where'er the Sun may be sung.