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After more than 200 years of feudal life under the Saxon and Norman lordships of the vill of Begesland , four hundred years of complete monastic control of the abbey grange at Byland on the Moor and tenancy under the 350 year lordship of the manor by the Bellasis and Wombwell families the tenants of Old Byland were about to become independent owners of their farms and cottages.

We have seen on earlier pages that the income derived by the Wombwell family from the estate had fallen in the last quarter of the 19th century and had stagnated during the early 20th century and in 1922 suddenly faced with the payment of crippling death duties they decided to sell the whole of the Old Byland estate the majority of which was sold at auction but Weathercote was sold to Christopher Bosomworth on 17 April 1912 and Long Plains [previously King’s Spring] was sold to Belt Cornforth and his sons Herbert, William and Alonzo on 22 March 1922. The following table shows the farm acreages and annual rentals and the people who bought the farms.

William Dickens Bell was the son of Thomas the tenant of Tile House in 1901 and Joseph William Bentley had shared part of Manor Farm in the same year. Robert and Jesse Sharp were the sons of William the tenant of Valley View Farm in 1909, Herbert Ellis was the son of Thomas who had the tenancy of Mount Pleasant Farm in the same year and Herbert Nicholson was living at the Board inn in 1901 with his uncle Stephen Lawn.