Regional  Records and Archive Offices

On the reorganisation of local government in 1974, Harrogate was moved from the former West Riding into North Yorkshire. Accordingly, the county record office has many records relating to the town, including of its local government but also of such as schools, churches and chapels. As a record office it is necessary to make an appointment to view items; phone and email contacts above. There is a link from the website www.northyorks.gov.uk/archives to the online catalogue. You can also find the office on twitter @nyccarchives and Instagram @north_yorkshire_archive. From lockdown, the office established a new blog site with a growing number of posts about the collections which can be found at https://nycroblog.com/.

With Harrogate being historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, the West Yorkshire Archive Service hold many records about Harrogate and the surrounding area at their Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield offices. The main website is http://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-services. For an overview go to the collections guides see https://www.wyjs.org.uk/archive-service/our-collections/guides-to-our-collections/. The best way to search for records about Harrogate is to start with a search in the online catalogue here https://www.catalogue.wyjs.org.uk/calmview/. The Leeds branch is at Morley; phone and email contacts above. At Leeds you will find, for example, registers from Harrogate Christ Church, St Luke and St Mark, as well as family and estate papers, sale catalogues and maps and plans, including a wonderful map dated 1767 of the Forest of Knaresborough.

The Bradford office is in the city centre, phone and email contacts below. You can search for records relating to Bradford on the same online catalogue as for Leeds, https://www.catalogue.wyjs.org.uk/calmview/. Holdings relevant to Harrogate are less than those of Leeds, but include some family papers, particularly of the Paley family, deeds, and records of the Harrogate and District Cooperative Society and the Rogers Almshouses.

The main source of interest here is The West Riding Registry of Deeds, which would be useful for anyone researching property in Harrogate between 1704 to 1970 and records of the former West Riding, which included Harrogate, including for example the licensing of alehouses by county magistrates and the turnpiking of roads.