Neither the Lay Subsidies of 1300 or the list of jurors in 1588 show the names of all the heads of households who were living in Scawton and the earliest record to do so is the Hearth Tax of 1673. The tax was levied twice a year — at Lady Day and Michaelmas — each hearth was taxed at a rate of two shillings payable in two instalments and those who were too poor to be rated for church or poor rates, occupied dwellings worth less then twenty shillings per year or whose possessions were worth less than £10 had to petition Commissioners of Taxes or Justices of the Peace for certificates of exemption. The following assessment of the number of hearths was recorded on Lady Day 1673
Discharged by certificate
The Rector’s house had the most hearths and it is surmised that the next six men on the list were tenants of the largest farms who at this date probably employed live-in servants and labourers. Thirteen households were paying tax for one hearth and a third were poor enough to have been granted certificates of exemption. Thirty households were listed compared with the eighteen who paid tax in 1300 and with 38 in Rievaulx and 32 in Old Byland. A multiple of four to a household would suggest a population of about 120 but as that would not take into account servants or labourers the actual number is likely to have been similar to that of 148 recorded in the Population Census of 1851.
Hearth Tax of Lady Day 1673
