Summary
Terrace of early-C19 shops, altered in the late C19 and C20.
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.
New Street was laid out during the last decade of the C18 and the first decade of the C19 to connect Selby town centre to the new Selby Toll Bridge, and to the river front. The bridge was completed in 1792 and replaced an old foot ferry that had been an impediment to both vehicular traffic and trade. New Street provided a through-route for traffic travelling to and from the West Riding, Leeds, York and the East Riding. This increased traffic provided trading opportunities that resulted in the construction of several shops and public houses along the street; these properties were probably built during the early C19. In the late C19, they were altered into a row of single and double-bay shops of a relatively uniform appearance with only minor variations in detailing, except for number 28, which was given a more elaborate shop frontage. During the mid-C20, numbers 14 and 16 were combined to form a two-bay shop unit, as were numbers 24 and 26. The north-eastern end of the terrace was originally attached to a public house called the Swan Inn; however, following the pub's demolition, the gable end of the terrace was rebuilt. The terrace was listed in 1980.
Details
Terrace of shops, early-C19 with late-C19 and C20 alterations.
MATERIALS: brown brick, now rendered, pan-tile roof, timber windows.
PLAN: two-storey terrace aligned south-west to north-east, with single-storey catslide rear extension.
EXTERIOR: facing north-west onto New Street and currently six shops. Of two storeys with brick-bracketed eaves cornice and ogee cast-iron gutter with scrolled stays. Recessed doorways and rectangular fanlights, and inclined fascias with simplified scroll consoles, bracketed by larger consoles at 16 and 26. Numbers 24 and 22 share a recessed entrance, and number 16 at the right (formerly two units) is the same. Shop windows, number 22 with glazing bars and number 24 with glazing bars and transoms. Number 28 has a higher fascia, and windows with leaded transom lights. It and 24/22 have black and white tile floors in the entrance. First-floor windows are three-pane casements with two transom lights.
The brick gable end to number 28 is blind, with a truncated ridge stack.
The original rear wall is hidden by a narrow secondary extension with a cat-slide pantile roof, which runs the full length of the rear of the terrace; all ground-floor openings in the rear extension have been blocked. Numbers 24, 26 and 28 have a deeper plan and taller ridge, and first floor rear walls above the extension. The attic and first-floor windows of the south-west gable wall of number 24 have been bricked-up, Number 26's rear window is obscured by boarding, and number 28 is lit by a 12-pane Yorkshire sash window. The pitched roofs of numbers 14 to 20 are clad in pantiles, number 26 has a similar roof with a shallow mono-pitched roof to the rear that is clad in corrugated asbestos sheeting, and the gabled roofs of numbers 24 and 28 have been treated in a similar manner.
