It is a tribute to the accuracy of Saxton’s survey that his measure of the Lordship of Old Byland only differs by 61 acres from the national valuation made in 1909. The 720 acres recorded in the Domesday Survey had more than trebled to 2,400 in 1598 and some of the names of areas listed by Christopher Saxton can still be seen in Old Byland in 2004.
Many of the places surveyed can be identified with reasonable accuracy. Wethercote Lambe Close became Weathercote Farm, Raines Pasture was the beginning of the present-day Reins Farm where High and Low Callister are still field names and for some odd reason Scawton Ings had become Scorton Ings by 1879 though that place near Richmond is over thirty miles away. Ashberris is now known as Ashberry Farm and Kereby Leaes had become Kirby Leirs by 1789 when four fields of that name accounted for 74 acres that formed part of Old Byland Grange. By 1879 the 78 acres known as Claverlie Lears had been reduced to three fields covering 29 acres that were farmed by John Cole.
The ‘dueusions’ appear to have been divisions of common land and the first known as Wether Laiers was north west of the village between Rounde Hill and Sleddale. The second was an area between Sneuerdale and Lymperdale ending at the ‘way from Cockwath Gate’, the third ‘lying east of Cockwath Lane’ was south of the ‘place where they washe the shepe’ and the fowerth was between Cairedale [now Caydale] Mill and the Cowe Pasture north of the village. All these ‘deuesions’ later became part of individual farms.
BOUNDARY PERAMBULATION OF 1650
As records of baptisms in the Old Byland registers only commence in 1645 and there are no earlier tenancy records we have to rely on the following listing of men who took part in a boundary perambulation in 1650 as a guide to the tenancies of the middle of the 17th century
Roger Abram
George Belwood
John Belwood
John Butterie
John Butterie
John Butterie
Roger Butterie
William Butterie
Thomas Day
Anthony Flintoft
John Lumley
John Rowland
William Rowland
Bryan Storye
John Storye
Thomas Storye
John Walton
Chfr Webster
Roger Webster
John Williamson
As 32 people paid Poll Tax in 1377 and two of the names of 1650 are unreadable, the same number of men joined the perambulation which suggests that the population of Old Byland hardly changed in the space of 273 years.
Bryan, John and Thomas Storye are thought to have been descendants of Thomas Storye whose ground was listed in the Saxton survey and George and John Belwood were descendants of John Belwood who was the Old Byland miller in 1538.
As no early baptism records have survived it is not possible to know when the Abram, Halliday and Hornby families arrived in Old Byland but if 1650 is taken as a datum line the Abrams were to live there for another 175 years, the Hallidays for 185 and the Hornbys for over 250.
Old Byland in the 17th century
