Summary
Late-C18/early-C19 commercial properties with accommodation above, altered in the C19, 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 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.
By the C18 Gowthorpe had become the principal shopping street of Selby, leading onto the marketplace and Selby Abbey. It was also the main thoroughfare to Leeds, and later, eastwards over the River Ouse to the East Riding of Yorkshire. Medieval burgage plots used to extend on the northern side as far as Selby Dam. 24-28, Gowthorpe were built on the site of earlier buildings and their plan forms conformed to three of these burgage plots, with the western pair merged. The 1849 Ordnance Survey town map shows the existing buildings and the covered passageway passing under the right-hand side of number 24, leading through to a soda water manufactory attached to the rear, and a further passageway between numbers 26 and 28. Numbers 26 and 28 were poor housing known as Feoffees (held as a freehold estate and run by the Selby Feoffee and Welfare Charity, as a form of charitable housing). The 1890-1891 town map shows that the soda water manufactory had become the Nag's Head public house, and number 28 had become Brook's Dispensary. By the mid-1930s 28 Gowthorpe became a greengrocer's shop owned by W H Whiskers, who eventually acquired all three properties and knocked them through into a single shop, which remained open as a business until January 2004. In 2013 the ground floor of the buildings was altered from three shops into two, and 11 residential units were created above the shops. As part of this work the rear range of number 24 was demolished and replaced by a four-storey extension with a mansard roof, and the three-storey gabled rear range of number 28 had a two-storey extension added to its northern end.
Details
Late-C18/early-C19 commercial properties with accommodation above, altered in the C19, C20, and C21.
MATERIALS: painted stuccoed brick, and pitched pantile roof (numbers 28 and 26), pitched slate-clad roof (number 24).
PLAN: rectangular plan, three-storey street frontages.
EXTERIOR: the main elevations face southwards onto Gowthorpe. Number 24 occupies the two taller eastern bays, and numbers 26 and 28 occupies the lower three western bays. The ground floor of number 24 has an open passageway to its right that gives access to the rear of two adjacent properties, and the remainder is occupied by a modern late-C19 style double-fronted shopfront, with stylised panelled stall boards, simple fluted pilasters, and square panelled capitals. A modern single shop window occupies the ground floor of number 26, and an off-set modern shop window occupies number 28, both with matching details to those of number 24. The first floor of number 24 has a pair of recessed 16-light sash windows resting on painted ashlar sills, and the second floor has a pair of four-over-eight sashes, beneath a raised coped parapet that obscures the roof. The first floor of numbers 26 and 28 has three recessed four-light sash windows resting on painted ashlar sills, and the second floor is lit by three similar, but shorter sashes, beneath a brick modillion eaves cornice. A round cast-iron Selby Civic Trust award plaque is attached at first-floor level.
The west gable of number 28 is exposed above the roof of the adjacent property; it is coped and terminates in projecting moulded ashlar kneelers. The wall is raised above the level of the steeply pitched pantile-clad roof, and it has a truncated gable chimneystack at its apex, which projects beyond the wall line on a brick base. A similarly truncated stack is situated at the opposite end of the roof, built against the partially exposed fair-faced brick gable wall of No.24. The rendered east gable wall of number 24 is exposed above the roof of the adjacent property, and has a projecting truncated brick chimneystack. The raised parapet has a flat coped return to both gables, of the less steeply pitched slate-clad roof. The slate roof of number 24 has an obscured gutter, which drains through the eastern end of the parapet wall, into a moulded hopper, and a cast-iron downpipe. The pantile roof of numbers 26 and 28 is slightly flared and drains into a box gutter supported by galvanised steel brackets, emptying into a cast-iron downpipe.
