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In 1851 there were 15 farmers, 33 farm labourers including grooms and 13 farm servants living in the village and in 1901 there were 12 farmers, 22 labourers and 6 servants — at the end of the 20th century there were 10 farmers and no labourers or servants. At the end of the 20th century there were no village tradesmen compared with 8 in 1851, 9 in 1881 and 1901, the Board Inn closed in 1927 and became a normal dwelling. There were 25 children of school age in 1851 with 4 working as labourers and 20 in 1901 with 5 working as labourers — in the year 2000 there were two children of school age.

In the middle of the 19th century there were no people living in the village who could be classed as retired and 8 men age 65 or over including a labourer of 76 were still working. The end of the 20th century has brought about a change as the attractions of living in such a pleasant area have persuaded 12 people to retire to the village. The following table shows the population changes that have taken place over a period of 150 years.

Old Byland can still be regarded as a rural farming community but mechanisation and changing economic circumstances have altered the make-up of the community in a way that could not have been envisaged even fifty years ago. Several of the farming families have changed some of their accommodation into holiday cottages and one farmer’s wife has created a thriving business that sells ladies’ underwear from a web site.

Though the dwellings clustered round the village green are not the ones depicted by Christopher Saxton in 1598 their locations are broadly the same as they were at the end of the 16th century and probably at least a hundred years before. The village church has stood on its present site for over a thousand years and the priest-in-charge still takes services continuing a tradition maintained by his predecessors throughout the millennium.