Historically in Lancashire, it is located 3 miles (4.8 km) southeast of the city centre and is bordered by the suburbs of Garston, Hunt's Cross, Mossley Hill, and Woolton.

[1] In the Domesday Book, Allerton appears as Alretune, meaning "the alder enclosure".

Allerton was formerly a township in the parish of Childwall,[2] in 1866 Allerton became a separate civil parish, it was made an urban district by the Local Government Act 1894, and added to the county borough of Liverpool on 9 November 1913.

[5] Over the course of the 2010s, many new bars and restaurants opened on Allerton Road, increasing its popularity.

Allerton is featured in the first episode of the BBC drama series Spooks, in which pro-life campaigners detonate a bomb outside the home of a family planning doctor.