By 1086 land in the Withcall area was owned by Bishop Odo of Bayeux, the maternal half-brother of William the Conqueror, who was for a period second in power after the King of England.

Joan Thirsk, in her England Peasant Farming, of 1957, reports the Lord of Withcall 'was preparing in 1681 to change the Westfield from crop-growing to the keeping of sheep'.

By pursuing this system of farming the Wolds are kept in the highest state of cultivation that such a soil can be: they are made to produce magnificent crops of turnips, and they turn out a class of sheep which have long been famous".

Adrian S. Pye writes: "Construction was delayed by bad weather and in October 1874, a deluge of water washed navvies out of the tunnel.

Bricklayers went on strike because their hands were being scalded by wet lime and December saw the death of a workman [Cornelius Janaway} who was struck by a wagon."