Summary
Public house, late C18, altered in the C20 and C21.
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.
Work started on the construction of The Crescent in the mid-1790s as a speculative development, by James Audus the Elder (1752-1809), a prominent ship-owner, and was inspired by Lansdowne Crescent, Bath. It was designed by his son James, who was an amateur architect, and was not completed until after his father’s death. It was designed as a fashionable sweep of commercial properties with accommodation above, facing in an arc onto the close of the Abbey Church of St Mary and St Germaine (Selby Abbey). The Crescent formed an elegant entry into Selby, linking the marketplace to the new toll bridge (1793) via New Street, and straddling the junction with Park Street/Bawtry Road. Number 1 The Crescent became the Albion Vaults Public House, serving the much-increased passing trade from the East Riding using the Selby to Market Weighton Turnpike and the toll bridge. The Albion Vaults was situated at the north-eastern end of The Crescent and faced onto New Street, with Park Row (formerly Park Place) giving access to a stable and a store building to the rear. This arrangement differed from the other buildings within The Crescent, which all had domestic service ranges, small gardens and combined closet and coal stores to the rear. In 1991 the Albion Vaults was sold and by 2016 it had been extensively refurbished to become a bar/restaurant, having formerly been known as the Albion Vaults Public House.
Details
Public house, late C18, altered in the C20 and C21.
MATERIALS: stuccoed brick, slate-clad hipped roof, with a fair-faced clamp brick rear range.
PLAN: rectangular plan.
EXTERIOR: three-storeys, two-bay narrow front elevation and a wide two-bay side elevation with attached rear range and a former stable block. The ground floor of the front elevation has a central recessed double door with six fielded panels and a large fanlight, flanked to each side by a pair of large plate-glass windows with low brick risers, plain pilasters, moulded blind clerestory panels, simple moulded console brackets supporting a dentilled cornice, and a modern cusped-ended facia board. The first floor has two, two-light horned sash windows with raised voussoirs, resting on a continuous sill band. The second floor is also lit by two identical windows. The side elevation has flush two-light horned sash windows with a pair to the ground floor, a single sash with exposed boxes to the first and second floors on the left, and blocked window positions to the right. The wall has five moulded circular tie-plates, one to the first floor and two each to the second and ground floor. The hipped Welsh slate clad roof is obscured to the front and side elevations by a plain parapet with flat coping stones. The roof is continuous with the adjacent property and has a shared chimney stack at the apex of the hip.
The two-storey two-bay rear range has a single sash to each floor, a doorway to the right and a gabled Welsh slate roof. The attached former stable block has an irregular five-bay north-east elevation; it has a double timber garage door to the left, three two-light sash windows with moulded brick sills and differing segmental brick lintels, and one sash with a flat timber lintel. The first floor has a square timber-framed ventilation window, a double taking-in door, a sash window with a flat lintel of terracotta blocks and a blocked window space with a similar lintel. The gabled roof is clad in slate with grey ridge tiles and is drained by modern plastic rainwater goods. It has a raised brick gable verge with plain coping stones that terminates with stone kneelers. A small single-storey lean-to against the eastern gable is built using small bricks. The rear elevation of the main range has a sash window to each floor and a brick chimney stack rises against the south elevation of the former stable block.
