The Domesday Survey recorded the two vills of Begesland and Scaltun previously held by Aschil and in the possession of the half brother of William the Conqueror — then as now they shared a common boundary. Early in the 12th century they were in the possession of Nigel d’Aubigny, were inherited by his son Roger de Mowbray after his father’s death and by 1142 the manor of Scaltun was held by Hugo Malebisse as a knight’s fee from de Mowbray and after the latter gave land at Begesland to the Savignian monks the two places became separate Lordships and after Roger the second abbot of Byland had a chapel built at Scaltun in 1146 each manor had its own church.
These were the beginnings of the two separate parishes and in the middle of the 16th century the Fairfax family were Lords of the Manor of Scawton, the Bellasis family the Lords Fauconberg held the Manor of Old Byland and that situation continued until 1751 when Viscount Fairfax sold his Scawton estate to Sir Thomas Worsley of Hovingham, in 1791 Ann Bellasis married George Wombwell and these two families remained Lords of the adjacent manors until 1866 when Scawton was purchased from the Worsleys by Robert Tennant who sold it to Henry Carl Ferdinand Bolckow in 1881.
The first half of the 20th century saw a complete change in the pattern of ownership as first the Wombwells, faced with crippling death duties sold the Old Byland estate in 1922 to different private buyers, some of them sitting tenants and 17 years later for different reasons the Bolckows followed the same pattern and in 1939 the farms and dwellings of Scawton were all purchased by private buyers.
So nine hundred years of manorial rule came to end and both villages had their own parish councils but the diminishing population eventually led to the councils being allowed to lapse and when in 1996 an attempt was made to resurrect them it was found that the number of adults living in each parish did not justify separate councils and a new Old Byland/Scawton Parish Meeting was formed to protect the interests of both villages.
In a sense this a step backwards to the situation recorded in the Domesday Survey when both manors were linked by common ownership and since the end of the 19th century both parishes have seen a similar pattern of steady reduction in the reliance on agriculture and dramatic falls in their populations but both villages still have a central nucleus with their own church and are still surrounded by outlying farms as they were in the 16th century.
So although the 20th century saw rapid technological developments that are likely to accelerate in the 21st century and a number of people in both villages have computers and internet connections the traditions of the village still remain and though in 1979 the church that probably served the people for a thousand years became part of the Parish of Upper Ryedale there is still a service at Old Byland at least once a month and the church door remains open for those who perhaps after enjoying the rural surroundings wish to see the simplicity of its Norman architecture and also enjoy a few moments of quiet serenity.
