The village is mentioned in the Domesday book along with Eastburn, Grassington, Linton and Threshfield as belonging to Gamelbar.

Numbers 44 and 46 Upper School Street, built in the Queen Anne period, during the 1770s became the "Goat’s Head" on the original route of the Keighley to Kendal turnpike down.

Following its realignment the inn's name and licence was moved to its present building opposite the Station Road junction.

The second location, with quoined angles, gable stacks and integral canted bay windows, was probably built as a farmhouse in the mid-18th century.

[1] The village has a major hospital, (Airedale General Hospital), a Pie Shop, a news agency, three hair dressing salons, a fruit shop, a Chinese takeaway, a transport cafe, two parks, a public house, a bowling green, a war memorial, two village greens, a football pitch, a cricket pitch, a graveyard, a primary school, an hotel, a Church of England church and a Methodist church.