[2] Swainby is located at the north-western corner of the North York Moors National Park.

[3] The characteristics of the village and the surrounding area consist of traditional Yorkshire dry stone walls, hills, sheep, heather and moorland.

[7] In the 19th century the housing of miners who worked the nearby hills for ironstone and jet led to an expansion of the village.

[1] Swainby was the site where an old drover's road entered the North York Moors.

It connected with Potto railway station on the Picton–Battersby line but it was not open to passenger traffic, being used to move ironstone from Whorlton to the smelters on Teesside only.