Skelton is a village and civil parish in the unitary authority of the City of York, in North Yorkshire, England.

It is four miles (6.4 km) north-north-west of the city of York, west of Haxby, and on the east bank of the River Ouse.

[5] The York Corporation bought Fairfield House on the opposite side of the main road in 1918 and opened it as a tuberculosis sanatorium in the following year.

By 1901 the village was recorded as comprising 2473 acres with a population of 270 having varied over the previous hundred years between 203 and 367; most were employed in servicing the large houses and in agriculture.

Local Services consist of a post office and general store, one public house and one social club, and a doctor's surgery.

The long, narrow plot boundaries extending back from the older houses are an example of the typical medieval pattern of 'toft and croft' agriculture.

[10] The main road which runs to the west of the village (from York towards Thirsk) was a turnpike and then in the last century became a major trunk route the A19.

[13] The village is within the Local Education Authority catchment area for Vale of York Academy on Rawcliffe Drive in nearby Clifton Without.

There is also a George VI post-box in the wall of the old post office, and a mounting block outside the Blacksmiths Arms.

The Blessed John Nelson, whose Feast day is 3 February, was a Jesuit martyr born in Skelton.

He was ordained at Douai at the age of forty and sent to London in 1576 where he was arrested and martyred at Tyburn by being hanged, drawn and quartered.