The 16th century Carr House Farm was occupied by flax workers to weave flax into linen. The village was the setting of the Ampleforth Sword Dance, traditionally held at Christmas. The dance was of a Long Sword type which had the back story of a traveller killed by the six swordsmen and when a doctor is called for to revive the dead traveller, a clown pushes him aside and brings the traveller back to life through his mystical moves. Cecil Sharp documented the dance in his book, The Sword Dances of Northern England, and he is credited with finding the last surviving man to have taken part in the dance (as the clown). The village used to have a railway station on the Thirsk and Malton Line that was south of Ampleforth. Services ran between and from the 1930s onwards and the station closed in 1950, some years before the rest of the line did to passengers. An electoral ward in the same name exists. This ward stretches south-east to Coulton with a total population taken at the 2011 census of 2,153.