The village school was founded in 1792 and rebuilt in 1860. Circa 1870, it had a population of 298 as recorded in the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales. The village was the site of RAF Great Orton, also known as "Wiggonby airfield" during World War II. It was opened in June 1943 as a satellite of RAF Silloth, it closed in August 1952. The site of the airfield was also used to bury nearly half a million animal carcasses in the 2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak.