Irton

Irton is mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to William Percy, and within the old wapentake of Dic. It is recorded as Iretune, which is partly from Old Norse, meaning the farm of the Irishmen (or Irishman). It has been recorded over the years with named variations such as I-,yrton, Hyrton, and Urton.

Historically, the village was a township in the Parish of Seamer, within the wapentake of Pickering Lythe (the later name for the wapentake of Dic). The village and surrounding area became their own separate civil parish after 1866 in the old North Riding of Yorkshire, and in 1974, it was moved from Scarborough Rural District to the Borough of Scarborough as a standalone parish. From 1974 to 2023 it was part of the Borough of Scarborough, it is now administered by the unitary North Yorkshire Council. The village is represented in the UK Parliament as part of the Scarborough and Whitby Constituency.

Part of the village clustered around Main Street was designated as a conservation in 1984. The village is host to a waterworks which takes water from a local aquifer via a borehole dug 428 feet (130 m) deep. The plant was built in the 1880s to provide water to the Scarborough area. The plant had a siding off the now closed Forge Valley, which supplied coal for the boilers producing steam to work the beam engines pumping water.

‡ Estimated.