Summary
Terrace of seven late-C18 shops with accommodation above and rear ranges, altered 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 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 there. 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, it 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.
This terrace of shops forms the southern side of Market Place and originally each shop would have had a central entrance flanked to either side by shop windows that projected out over the pavement. However, this arrangement was remodelled during the mid- to late C19. Each property had either a one or two-storey domestic range to the rear, with small warehouses and stabling backing onto Market Lane. The rear range of number 16 was extensively altered and extended in the late C19 to become a three-storey office with east-facing canted bay windows. During the 1960s, numbers 10 and 11 were substantially extended to the rear by Boots the Chemist to make a large modern shop and, in the mid-1980s the ground floors of numbers 12 and 13 were altered to form a pedestrian access flanked by small shop units to the Market Cross Shopping Centre, which was built to the rear of the building on the southern side of Market Lane. The entrance from Market Place was protected by a canopy over the pavement, but this was removed during the early C21.
Details
Terrace of seven late-C18 shops with accommodation above and rear ranges, altered C19, C20 and C21.
MATERIALS: fair-faced brown bricks and pitched slate-clad roofs.
PLAN: terrace of seven rectangular plan shops, with long rear ranges.
EXTERIOR: a terrace of seven, three-storey, two-bay shops with the front elevations facing north onto the Market Place, between James Street and New Lane. Number 10 is taller, and its floor levels are higher than the remainder of the terrace. The ground floor of each building is occupied by a shopfront; number 11 has a mid- to late-C19 shop window with low glazed brick stalls, arcaded glazing bars to the clerestory, a cornice with guttae and modillions, and a panelled door to the right with a blind rectangular fanlight. The recessed central window is a former door position. Numbers 12 and 13 have modern opposed canted shopfronts flanking a pedestrian passageway with a plain concrete pillar supporting concrete facias with impressed lettering that reads: ‘MARKET CROSS’ and ‘SHOPPING CENTRE’. The remaining shopfronts are all modern with pilasters, cornices, and console brackets in different styles; number 16 has more elaborate late-C19 style console brackets with hood mouldings and number 14 retains its original moulded cornice. Numbers 11, 14 and 15 have front doors off-set to the right-hand side. The first-floor front elevations have a mixture of two-light horned sash windows and a mixture of 12-light horned and plain sash windows; all with painted flat lintels, and the sills resting on a continuous sill band. The second floor has a similar mix of windows of shorter proportions. Number 10 has a gabled roof with a timber modillion eaves cornice and rainwater gutter. All of the other properties have a slate-clad, pitched-roof with brick chimney stacks, and gutters that are obscured by a brick parapet with flat ashlar copings, and are drained by four shared cast-iron rainwater down pipes. Number 16 has a raised roof verge, built against the gable of the neighbouring property. Numbers 13, 15, and 16 all have faded painted shop sign panels on the brick walls; none of which are legible.
