The village was in existence at the time of the Norman invasion, as shown in the OpenDomesday on-line. In the 11th century it was known as Hipton from the Old English words heope and -tun, meaning Rose-hip settlement. Land in the area was held by Count Alan of Brittany around 1086 and by Richard de Camera. Various landowners over the next 150 years gave land to nearby St Mary's Abbey. After the dissolution, John Shipton had leased the manor which John Redman eventually bought from the Crown outright in 1557. By 1625 the manor had passed to William Scudamore of Overton, who eventually sold it the Bouchier family of nearby Beningbrough Hall and thence through succession to the Dawnay family. In 1655, Ann Middleton, a Yorkshire philanthropist and wife of the Sheriff of York, left £1,000 to build a grammar school in the village. She also left 20 shillings a year to the poor of Shipton. The grammar school stood until 1850, when the Lord of the Manor, the Hon. Payan Dawnay, knocked it down, and built a new one. The village public house was once known as The Bay Horse, and was originally built in 1730. It became The Dawnay Arms in Payan’s lifetime and shows the family coat of arms over the door. It is a Grade II Listed building. Land to the north of the village was used as an airfield during the First World War. In the Second World War it was the base of a crashed aircraft recovery unit and then the site was used between 1953 and 1993 as a location for a government command and control bunker.
The village lies on what was once the Great North Road, but is now the A19. The nearest settlements are Wigginton to the east; Skelton to the south east and Beningbrough to the west. The 1881 UK Census recorded the population as 430. The 2001 UK Census recorded the population as 691, of which 525 were over the age of sixteen years and 311 of those were in employment. There were 272 dwellings, of which 126 were detached.
Religion
There is a church in the village dedicated to the Holy Evangelists which was built in 1849 by the Dawnay family and is a Grade II Listed building. There used to be a Wesleyan chapel in the village.
