Old Byland

A Church Written in Stone

Set into the wall of All Saints' Church is a sundial carved with the words "Sumar-Ledan Huscarl me facit," Anglo-Danish in origin. The church stands at one end of Old Byland's green, a long stretch of grass that the lanes and stone farmsteads face onto, and it is the first thing worth walking towards.

Inside, the church is more decorated than a small upland parish has any right to be. Early Norman capitals carved with dragons flank the round-headed tower doorway, alongside barley-sugar shafts. The chancel arch rests on ram's-head capitals. There is a Norman tub font, a set of medieval floor tiles laid in a circle, and a fifteenth-century king-post roof. Historic England dates the nave and porch-tower to the late eleventh or early twelfth century, and the chancel to the fifteenth. The roof failed in the 1970s and the church was briefly abandoned before a restoration in 1981; services still run at least monthly and visitors are welcome.

Beyond the Village Green

Around the green there is less to point at, but what remains rewards a slow look. Old Byland Hall sits on the south side, a coursed limestone house with a Venetian window lighting its stair. The old schoolhouse still stands. Caydale Mill lies out in the surrounding fields.

Don't expect a pub or a shop in the village itself; for dinner you drive. The Abbey Inn, over at Byland facing the abbey ruins, is run under the chef Tommy Banks and cooks from the family farm at Oldstead: a Dexter beef smashed burger, filled Yorkshire puddings on Sundays, and a Sunday roast of rare-breed Saddleback pork or Dexter beef that took the Good Food Guide's Best Sunday Roast in Britain for 2024. Its garden tables look out at the ruins, first come first served, and dogs are welcome on leads. For shops, cafés and a Friday market there is Helmsley, which also has a castle, a walled garden and a seasonal open-air swimming pool.

Arriving and Walking Rye Dale

Most visitors will need a car to reach any of this. Old Byland is about eight miles east of Thirsk; Thirsk is the nearest station, about 9.1 miles away in a straight line, and the single bus through the village is a school service for permit holders rather than anything you can flag down.

The walking is the other reason to be here. A route of just over six miles starts at the green, at SE 550859 on OS Explorer OL26, and drops into Rye Dale with Rievaulx Abbey coming into view. It follows the River Rye, crosses Bow Bridge and passes through Rievaulx village and its abbey before returning on part of the Cleveland Way, past lakes, stepping stones and woodland. There is a boardwalk, a stile and gates along the way, so sturdy footwear is worth it, especially after rain.

The Village Moves

This is not where the village began. The Domesday settlement stood near what is now Tylas Farm: in 1086, eight households — seven villagers and a priest — with three ploughlands, valued at sixteen shillings, down from a pound twenty years earlier. In 1143 Roger de Mowbray granted the site to Savigniac monks and the people were replanted on the present green. The monks lasted four years and left for Stocking in 1147 because Rievaulx was too close.

The Day the Estate Was Sold

Almost the whole village was sold off at York's Royal Station Hotel on 7 June 1922, after debts run up by the Wombwells of Newburgh Priory. The lots ran to nine freehold farms, eleven smallholdings, an inn, a school and a blacksmith's shop, "altogether forming one of the most fascinating and beautiful Estates in the North Riding of Yorkshire." The inn and the blacksmith's shop are gone. The schoolhouse remains.