NORTHALLERTON, an urban district, market town and administrative capital of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 3o m. N.N.W. of York by the L.N.E. railway, on which it is an important junction. Pop. 4,787. It is situated on a slight .eminence at the foot of the Cleveland and Hambleton Hills, 3 m. from the bank of the Swale. It thus avoids the flood land of the Vale of York. Here the western scarp of the Wolds causes the Vale to narrow to a width of io m., forming the Northallerton Gate.
Northallerton (Alvetune, Allerton) is believed to have been a Roman station, and the importance of the Gate is marked by two Roman roads, one running north from Catterick, the other from York. It was probably later a Saxon "burgh," and a Danish settlement, but nothing is known with certainty about it before the account given in the Domesday Survey, which shows that the Normans had destroyed the manor so utterly that it was still waste in 1 086. In mediaeval times, the Gate was an obvious way south into England for the Scottish army. The Battle of the Standard was fought near the town in 1138 and the castle was destroyed in 1174. In 1317, the town was burnt by the Scots under Robert Bruce. Soon after his accession, William Rufus gave Northallerton to the Bishop of Durham, whose successors continued to hold it until it was taken over by the ecclesiastical commissioners in 1865. There are now no traces of the fortified palace of the bishops. A priory was founded here in 1341, and a White Friars
monastery in and all trace of these also has been lost. The Mount Grace priory, a Carthusian foundation of 1397, remains.
According to an inquisition taken in 1333, the town, markets and fairs were held by the burgesses who were governed by two reeves and the bishop's bailiff. This form of government continued until 1851, when a local board was formed, and this was superseded by an urban district council in 1894. As a borough by prescription, Northallerton returned two members to the parliament of 1298, but it was not represented again until 1640 when its earlier privi leges were restored. The Municipal Reform Act of 1832 reduced the number of members to one, and in 1885 representation of the town was merged in that of the district. It is now in the Richmond parliamentary division.
The town has a considerable trade in dairy farming and has held a weekly market since 1205. A fair held on St. Bartholomew's day was famous for cattle in the 16th century, but it is no longer held. Northallerton is to-day the railway focus of the Gate. It now has an important motor-engineering industry.
See C. J. D. Ingledew, History and Antiquities of Northallerton in the County of York (1858) ; J. L. Saywell, History and Annals of Northallerton (1885) ; Victoria County History, Yorkshire.