OLD BYLAND HALL
The Rector of Old Byland had a dwelling known as ‘The Hall’ in the reign of Henry VIII and it was held by William Willoughby in 1549 but there is no further reference to the Hall in records that have survived from the 17th and mid 18th centuries and it is unlikely that any part of the present-day hall dates back to the 16th century.
It is probable but not provable that the Hornby family were tenants at Old Byland Hall early in the 18th century and in 1846 Dorothy Hornby had 150 acres associated with the hall though Robert Freer was living in the house where he worked as a horse dealer and after his death in 1858 Thomas Leckenby from Hawnby became tenant of the hall and 170 acres and his son Robert took the tenancy after his father’s death in 1873 and was at the hall until 1887 when his brother William held the tenancy until his death in 1893 when it passed to his son John William Richardson Leckenby whose children Annie, William Redvers and Francis Joseph were all born at the hall. When John William left in 1906 John Scurr became the tenant and he and has wife Polly bought the hall and 154 acres in 1924.
After the Scutt family left the hall it had a succession of owners including D M S Smelt, Christopher Robson and the author Paul Piers Reid who sold it to Mrs Pat Gold in 1984 when Janet Ericsson was the tenant.
LONG PLAINS FARM previously known as KING’S SPRING HOUSE
The earliest recognisable tenants are the Rowland family who seem to have been at the farm in 1750 but were living in Old Byland a hundred years earlier and had a smaller farm in 1700. William and Thomas Rowland were at the farm in 1772 and gravestones in Old Byland churchyard record the burials of Thomas and William Smith of King’s Spring House in 1825 and 1833 and Elizabeth Smith who was the tenant of the farm in 1846 was the widow of William.
She was followed by Thomas Elgey who was the tenant in 1851 and his length of tenure was less than 12 years as another gravestone records the death of Lancelot Cossins at King’s Spring House in 1864 in which year his tenancy was taken by his son Martin after whose death in 1871 the farm was held by his elder brother Lancelot who had been farming at Gillamoor before moving back to Old Byland and he held the tenancy until 1887 when Alfred Gatus moved to Old Byland from Lockton and was at King’s Spring House until 1895 when the tenancy was taken by John W Boyes and his son Walter who were at the farm until 1905 when John Chapman became the tenant and he was still at the farm in 1914 eight years before the farm was purchased from the Wombwell estate by Belt Cornforth and his sons Herbert, William and Alonzo. As Herbert’s grandson Derek Cornforth still farms at Long Plains the family can claim the longest unbroken family tenancy at the farm which has lasted 82 years.
ASHBERRY FARM
Land known as Eskbergh was recorded in the 12th century but the earliest record of anything that may have been the beginnings of a farm was the 94 acres listed as Ashberris in Christopher Saxton’s survey of 1598 nd there is no way of determining any tenancies until that of John Freer in 1698 when he was paying annual rent of £20 for the farm that his descendants were to hold for
