Summary
Market Cross, late C18.
History
Selby as a settlement dates to the Anglo-Saxon period, when it was known as Seletun (old Scandinavian for ‘sallow tree settlement’) and was referred to by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of AD 779. A charter of about 1030 called it Seleby and about 1050 it was Selbi. King Henry I was born in Selby in 1068 and, a year later, Benedict, a French monk from Auxerre, obtained permission from King William to establish an Abbey. The Market Place has existed since the early C14. By the C15, Selby had developed thriving trade links along the East Coast and with the Low Countries. Selby Abbey succumbed to dissolution in 1539, and the core of the building became the parish church in 1618.
Selby’s commercial importance grew dramatically following the opening of the Selby Canal in 1778, becoming a notable inland port; however, after the building of Goole Docks in 1826, it suffered a very rapid decline. The town’s fortunes recovered in 1834, with the opening of the Leeds and Selby Railway, and by the early C20, witnessed a growth in several industries served by the railways and river traffic, including flour milling, malting, oilseed milling and cattle feed production. In 1983, coal production commenced from the Selby Coalfield. Shipbuilding ended ten years later, and coal mining ceased in 2004. Since then, there has been a gradual reduction in the traditional industries, although some remain.
Erected in the Market Place at the expense of 9th Lord Petre, Lord of the Manor of Selby (1742-1801). There is some uncertainty over the date; the style suggests the third quarter of C18, while a modern plaque which was attached to the plinth stated 1775; however, Pevsner attributes a date of 1790. It was placed in Market Place close to the town pump, as the focal point for market traders and for the hiring of workers and servants. Originally, it was placed square-on in the middle of the road at the junction of Finkle Street, Market Place and Gowthorpe. With the growth in motor traffic during the 1960s, it was dismantled and then re-erected as a feature in the centre of a flower bed in Selby Park in 1968. In 1986, it was dismantled and returned to a position approximately 17m further to the east of its original location in the pedestrian area of Market Place, where it was raised on a modern stone podium. The Market Cross was formerly listed as being located in The Park, Selby.
Details
Market Cross, late C18.
MATERIALS: ashlar plinth, pedestal and shaft.
PLAN: quatrefoil plan, raised on a square-plan podium.
The Market Cross is of a neo-classical conception with Gothic details, standing on a modern square-plan, three-step ashlar podium. The pedestal has a quatrefoil plan, rising off a shallow plinth. Each foil has a moulded cornice and terminates in a semi-cone, abutting a face of the base of the cruciform shaft. Each face of the base has a vertical surface with an eroded gable, which in turn have badly eroded gargoyles where the lower ends of each gable meet. Although badly eroded, the gables appear to have been crocketed. Above the gabled base, the cross tapers steeply to form a pyramidal shaft, which retains the cruciform plan at its eroded apex.
