[3] There is evidence of Roman activity around the village which sat on the Malton to Aldburgh road in those times.

During the construction of Hovingham Hall gardens, a Roman bath, tesselated pavement and other artefacts were uncovered.

It is also part of the Hovingham & Sheriff Hutton electoral division of North Yorkshire Council.

Marrs Beck flows northwards through the village to eventually join the River Rye near Butterwick and Brawby.

[13] There is a village shop[14] as well as a bakery and tea room,[15] a hotel,[16] a public house[17] and other local businesses.

[20] The majority of the present church building dates back to 1860, when it was rebuilt at the expense of Marcus Worsley.

[25] A unique feature of the Grade I listed building is that it is entered through a covered Riding School, once used for training horses.

[27] He persuaded the Worsley family to make their eighteenth-century riding school at Hovingham Hall available for a rural Yorkshire music festival that included leading professional musicians - including Joseph Joachim - supplementing the choirs and orchestras with local amateurs to make the cost of putting on ambitious works affordable.

[28] The repertoire was ambitious, including works (alongside the classics) by contemporary British composers - Elgar, Alan Gray, Parry, Somervell, Stanford and William Sterndale Bennett, and choral works by women composers such as Laura Wilson Barker (also known as Mrs Tom Taylor) and Alexandra Thomson.