Legend has it that residents on a 2 sides of the flow of any stream disputed ownership of the ford through the Tees. In a eventual battle, residents of the Durham side of the flow of any stream gained the ford, & their village became called Gainford. On the Yorkshire side of a river lies the places of the deserted village of Barforth or Barford, said to exist as known as inside memory of its residents' attempt to barricade a ford in a period of the dispute.

Within Anglo-Saxon times, Gainford was the centre of an crucial estate, a portion of the Northumbrian Congregation of Cuthbert of Lindisfarne. In the Dark Ages this area was taken by Vikings. Archeologist keep around encountered Viking sculptures at Gainford & occasionally examples one can be seen in display at Durham Cathedral. Numerous sculptures und at Gainford indicate two Northumbrian & Viking influence. Despite a Viking personal injury settlement, Northumbrian Angles remained major land owners along a banks of the Tees around Viking days.

In the nineteenth century Gainford village got its have spa. Now its independent features come an good village green, the Jacobean hall & the Georgian street known as High Row. A village church of St Mary's, Gainford stands on the places of an Anglo-Saxon monastery built by Bishop Ecgred of Lindisfarne in the early 9th century.