Thomas Halliday was the tenant in 1742, his son John was farming 199 acres in 1772 and John’s son Christopher had the tenancy in 1779. Entries in the parish registers show that Thomas Chapman was living at Tile House between 1784 and 1802 and his son Thomas had the tenancy in 1823.
John Peacock moved from the Board Inn to Tile House in 1833 and when Henry Scott the estate manager made his survey in 1846 John was recorded as tenant of 299 acres which had fallen to 210 acres by 1851 when John was still the tenant and employing his two nephews as farm labourers.
Between 1870 and 1880 the parish paid £1 each year for the maintenance of the Tile House road and as the payment was made to George Brisby in 1878-80 it is assumed that his tenancy started in 1878 and it was a brief one as Thomas Bell had become the tenant by 1887, he was still at the farm in 1909 and the sale catalogue of 1924 listed William Bell at the sitting tenant and he was still at the farm in 1929.
Frank Wykeley was at the farm between 1930 and 1936 when it was purchased by Doctor William Leslie Roberts of Husthwaite who in 1946 sold it to Geoffrey Thomas Bell who was described as a company director when in 1962 he sold the farm to Francis Luke Unwick whose last tenant was Laurie Milburn who retired to live at Spring Cottage, Rievaulx in 1980. The present owner of the farm is Ivan Holmes.
REINS FARM
The earliest record to provide the origin of the name of the farm is Saxton’s survey of 1598 which listed Raines Pasture which together with five other fields covered an area of 477 acres but as the surviving rent rolls of the early 18th century did not name farms we have to rely on the parish registers which show that John Halliday son of John was born at the farm in 1740 and it was he who was the tenant in 1772 and whose younger brother Christopher became the tenant after John’s death in 1794.
Robert Sturdy from Kilburn became tenant some time between 1820 when his daughter was born at Boltby and 1833 when his name appeared in the Old Byland rent roll. He was farming 211 acres in 1851 and his wife may have kept the farm for five years after his death in 1860 but Benjamin Kendrew from Cold Kirby had become the tenant by 1879 and in 1881 he was farming 275 acres and living with his sister Jane at the farm, employing 3 men, 3 boys 5 indoor servants and a shepherd and he held the tenancy until 1892 when it was taken by Garbutt Chapman who had come to Old Byland from Chatwith Farm in Daleside. The Chapmans were an old established Hawnby family and Garbut who was the son of John and Ann retained the farm tenancy until 1918 when it was taken by his son Edward George and when the Wombwells sold the estate in 1924 the farm was bought by the Tate family and Frank Prest was their tenant until he purchased Reins from Frederick John Tate in April 1958 for £5,750 and sold it eight months later to Laurence Lloyd Baker who only kept the farm for five months before selling it in May 1959 to Robert Davison whose son Norman and wife Margaret still run the farm in 2004.
