[1] The Northern Circuit stretches from Carlisle in Cumberland at its northernmost point, running through Lakeland to the port of Whitehaven in the West, on through Preston and Burnley in Lancashire to Manchester, Liverpool and Chester.

The land to the east (Northumberland, Yorkshire and Durham) became the territory of the newly formed North-Eastern Circuit.

Today the circuit has a membership of some 1100 barristers of whom about 77 are Queen's Counsel, practising from chambers in Manchester, Liverpool, Preston and Chester.

Rose Heilbron QC was the first female High Court judge from the Circuit, 20 years earlier.

There have been other members who have attained fame outside the law – the author John Buchan, W. S. Gilbert and James Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Samuel Johnson.