More information : (Centred SE 548858) Earthworks (NAT). (1)
SE 548858. Earthworks at Valley View Farm (erroneous NGR SE 559859 given by Authy 3), the supposed site of Byland Abbey from 1143-7 (for which see SE 58 NE 16) were partially excavated by R. Close and R.H. Hayes in October 1961. The foundations of a substantial building of unknown date were uncovered, with 12th-15th century pottery and roofing tiles. (2-3)
SE 54808587. The earthworks form a small quadrangular complex roughly 30.0m. square, and consist of several turf-covered lynchets and banks, mainly ill-defined, occasionally exposed revealing a content of stone. There is now no intelligible trace of the apparent building excavated by Close and Hayes (marked (A) on their sketch map) and the site as a whole is not quite as evident as their sketch implies. Extending on either side of this complex are traces of field banks and amorphous hollows and mounds, the whole too ill-defined to survey. Surveyed at 1:2500. (4)
SE 550859. Old Byland was a planned village established by the Savigny (later Cistercian) monks after they had occupied and depopulated the original village of Byland (SE 58 NE 16) near Tile House Farm. Kirkby's Inquest, 1284-5, records eight carucates in old Byland all held by the abbot. (5-7)
SE 547858. Cistercian grange of Byland Abbey at Old Byland. There are good surviving earthworks immediately to the west of Old Byland village. The wall lines of early buildings are still exceptionally clear. They may relate either to the original structures of the grange or to an extension of the village, now shrunken, which it bordered. There are no medieval earthworks visible at the farm now known as Old Byland Grange. (8)
Earthworks visible on air photograph. (9)
Elements were mapped as part of the North York Moors National Park NMP, visible as a ruined building and structures on air photographs, centred at SE 5481 8587. The features consist of a large rectangular building with an annex to the west and several associated walled field boundaries. The building appears to have internal divisions and has maximum internal dimensions measuring 34m by 30m. The field boundaries are no longer extant on the latest 2009 vertical photography.
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