Corticotrophin‐releasing hormone (CRH) is a 41 amino acid neuropeptide which plays a major role in regulating the endocrine response to stress. CRH acts by first binding to specific receptors on the plasma membrane of target cells. A CRH receptor from a human corticotroph adenoma and rat brain has recently been cloned (CRH‐R1). In this paper, we have chosen three different peptide sequences within the CRH‐R1 molecule which bear no similarity to other members of this receptor subfamily (or indeed any known protein) and which are likely to be exposed on the surface of the native protein, for antibody production. Some of these fragments produced anti‐peptide antibodies of good titre which cross‐reacted with the CRH‐R1 receptor expressed in transiently transfected COS‐7 cells and in tissue extracts from rat cerebellum, cortex, pituitary gland and human myometrium, both in Western blots and in liquid‐phase radioimmunoassay. We used immunofluorescence techniques to localize the CRH receptor in transiently transfected COS‐7 cells, primary cultures of rat anterior pituitary (AP) cells, the corticotroph‐tumour cells AtT20 D16–16 and cortical neurons in primary culture. Our results indicate IR‐CRH‐R1 receptors have a punctate distribution on the plasma membrane of AP cells and AtT20 D16–16 cells. Whilst in AP cells their appearance is a fine punctate pattern, in AtT20 cells, they appear as large patches which could account for receptor clusters. Within primary cortical neurons, their distribution does not appear to be polarized. Our results suggest that distribution of CRH‐R1 receptors within the different cell‐types investigated depends not only on the amino acid sequence but also on cellular factors.