Northallerton, the County Town of North Yorkshire, has been a legal and administrative centre for over a thousand years during which time it has flourished as a thriving market town situated centrally at the northern extremity of the Vale of York in a rich agricultural area between the Hambleton Hills and the river Swale on a stretch of sand and gravel adjacent to the confluence of two streams at Castle Hills, Sun Beck and Willow Beck which flow into the river Wiske.