The large number of villages and farmsteads containing a personal name and -by are believed to have been settled by Scandinavian conquerors breaking up the English church and secular estates from the late 9th century.

[1] There are high density pockets in parts of Yorkshire corresponding to the Norse Kingdom of Jorvik and the subsequent Anglo-Danish Earldom of Northumbria from 954.

In the Domesday Book of 1086, Boulby is given as Bolebi or Bollebi,[2] and appears within the soke of Loftus, held in the William the Conqueror’s time by High d'Avranches, Earl of Chester.

The family were sole proprietors until about 1664, when Nicholas Conyers passed the estate to the sons of his second wife, who all died without male heirs.

According to Dr Stephen Sherlock, this discovery plays an important role in understanding aspects of the Neolithic agricultural economy.

[1] Boulby Cliff was mined for alum and in A Picturesque History of Yorkshire (1901) the face of the headland is described as being "dotted" with alum-works and miners cottages.