 The word Winton is Old English or Anglo-Saxon in origin, "Wyntuna" meaning a pasture farmstead was first identified in 1094, shortly after the Norman Conquest, during a period known as the 'Harrying of the North'.On 12 April 1659, the village of Winton was at the centre of the Westmorland witch trials, during which several women were hanged at Appleby General Sessions, found guilty of bewitching Margaret Bousefield.During the Middle Ages Winton was at the centre of the sheep rearing in the Eden Valley, where the flocks moved across the hills into pastures new.