Travelling west from Ainderby on the A684 you come to Morton-on-Swale - the two villages have not quite joined up. Originally just one street with houses mainly on the south side, it is a straggling village which ends well before it reaches the river Swale. Apart from the Manor, few of the houses are distinguished, but there are a lot of well-kept pretty gardens and the overall impression is of neat prosperity.
The 1913 edition of Kelly's Directory list a wheelwright, a blacksmith, a joiner, a grocer and a butcher (who also kept the public house, the Royal George); there was a ropemaker as well. Of these only the butcher remains, though there is a good village shop, which also houses the sub-post office, transferred from Ainderby in the 1980s. White’s is known as one of the best butcher’s for many miles, built up over four generations. There has been a lot of development in Morton with three new housing estates since the 1960s.
Morton Hall, now a farm, is mentioned in 1346 when it had a communal oven and a windmill. There were brick and tile works, used in living memory, down Potter s Lane; bricks made here used for cottages at Ainderby.
There are two public houses in the village: one, until recently known as the Non-Plus (named after a famous race horse), is now the Swaledale Arms. The other is the Old Royal George, named after a ship.
The stone bridge over the Swale was built in 1747-8 to replace a previous wooden bridge which was probably the successor of a manorial ferry. A murder was committed near here in 1759: Mary Ward, a servant girl, discovered that her boss was the leader of a gang of counterfeiters at a time when counterfeiting carried the death penalty. She told this secret to her sweetheart and the gang, learning of her knowledge, lured her to a lonely spot near the new bridge, attacked and brutally murdered her. Her ghost is reputed to haunt the bridge; it is said that her body was never found.