Following the closure of Byland Abbey, one of the king’s commissioners, Richard Bellasis, tried to obtain the abbey but failed. It was instead granted to Sir William Pickering (died 1542) in 1540.
The Stapyltons of Myton Hall
The estate then passed through various hands but for many years was owned by the Stapyltons of Myton Hall. In 1819 Martin Stapylton excavated parts of the ruined church and the chapter house searching for the grave of Roger de Mowbray.
He removed many tons of carved stone to Myton Hall where it was used to decorate the gardens. Martin Stapylton also took the high altar slab to Myton Hall together with a small alabaster image of the Trinity, both of which are now at Ampleforth Abbey.
The Newburgh Estate
The Stapylton estate declined financially and in 1893 Byland was sold to the Newburgh Estate which still owns the site today. By this time, what was left of the crossing tower, church and monastic buildings had either been slighted when the abbey was suppressed, or had collapsed subsequently through neglect.
A great deal of stone was also taken for building cottages, and many local houses and barns contain abbey stone. This process was still going on into the 1890s and probably later still.
Antiquarian interest
In the late 19th century few ancient monuments had statutory protection and their condition depended largely upon the whim and means of their owners. At Byland, pressure from the Yorkshire Archaeological Society led to the owner doing repairs to the west front of the church, overseen by the architect Charles Hodgson Fowler (1840–1910).
The society was keen to excavate the site and started a public subscription to that end with the eminent Lancaster architect Edmund Sharpe as director. Before work could start Sharpe died and the scheme was abandoned.
Following the First World War, many ancient monuments were placed in the guardianship of the Office of Works which ultimately became English Heritage in 1984. Byland was transferred to guardianship in 1920, and in 1921 the Office of Works began to excavate and clear the site of debris.
The standing walls were consolidated and repaired and the plan of the abbey was revealed. In the 1950s, a small site museum was built to exhibit many of the elaborate carved stones that had been discovered in the 1920s excavations.
Water management
Expanding interest in monastic archaeology showed that great abbeys like Byland were set within a large precinct that contained service buildings. In the 1960s, parts of the Byland precinct were surveyed and this revealed extensive earthwork remains. (1)
Further important recent survey work by English Heritage has revealed much new evidence about the northern half of the precinct. (2) This has also clarified and modified the interpretation of the water management system, which has been altered since the suppression of the abbey.
To drain the site the monks engineered the landscape and diverted streams to flush drains built beneath the abbey buildings. The main precinct was also walled and enclosed, an area of around 110 acres. A series of small dams along the Oldstead road appear to have been built as storm water storage areas to stop the abbey being flooded.
The survey also shows that the buildings of the outer court were concentrated to the west of the main claustral ranges. Recent small scale excavations within this outer court have confirmed the presence of what is likely to have been the guest hall and other service buildings.
(1) 'The Waterworks of Byland Abbey', J McDonnell and R Everest, Ryedale Historian I, 1965, 32–39; 'Monastic Earthworks South of Byland Abbey', J McDonnell and S A Harrison, Ryedale Historian 9, 1978, 5.
(2) Marcus Jecock, Andrew Burn, Graham Brown and Al Oswald, 'Archaeological Survey and Investigation of part of the Precinct and Extra-Mural Area, Byland Abbey', English Heritage report forthcoming.
