In 1143 they moved to Old Byland, but found this site too close too the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx – the monks were constantly disturbed by each other's bells.

[1] In 1147, the year they joined the Cistercian congregation, the monks moved again to Stocking, where they apparently built a stone church.

[1] The site is now maintained by English Heritage[10] and is scheduled as an ancient monument by Historic England with grade I listed status.

[11][12] In October 2017, the west frontage of the church, including the famed Rose Window, underwent extensive conservation work to repair water damage and to repoint the stone walls.

One of the manuscripts owned by Byland Abbey in the Middle Ages is noted for containing a collection of twelve ghost stories.

The manuscript is now London, British Library Royal MS 15 A xx, produced in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, primarily containing a copy of the Elucidarium and some tracts by Cicero.

[16][17] These are a series of twelve ghost stories, mostly set locally, which were presumably intended for inclusion in sermons as exempla and which reflect orally circulating folklore in Yorkshire at the time.

One, called Robert Foxton, caught him as he emerged from the cemetery and laid him over the church gate, loudly and courageously shouting "You hold fast until I come to you".

The priest of the parish indeed hurried quickly and conjured him the holy name of the Trinity and by the virtue of Jesus Christ until he responded to his questions.

When he knew these, the priest absolved him but he insisted that the aforesaid capturers would not reveal in any way his confession, and otherwise he rested in peace, having been set in order with God.Extensive remains can still be seen of all the main buildings of the abbey.

The elaboration of the church was also novel, with a three-storey internal elevation, wooden vaults over the high central vessels, and shafted columns of a type that was copied across northern England.

Some of the arcaded stone screens dividing the church into sections for the monks and lay brothers were recovered in excavation and have been reset.

Mosaic floor tiles of the 1230s survive in large areas of the south transept and presbytery, in yellows and greens.

In the 13th century a new detached abbot's house was built to the south of the infirmary, and the reredorter was replaced as the drainage was found wanting.

Then, in the late 14th century, the infirmary was demolished and replaced by a series of apartments, reflecting the decline in communal living.

[28] Of the other outer buildings in the precinct, dry hollows remain of the three large millponds, and extensive earthworks can be seen of the rest.