The market place city of Selby is dominated by the former Abbey, now the town’s parish church but originally built to provide a Benedictine monastery. It is just one of those scarce cathedral-sized survivors of the Dissolution that have appear down to us via parochial use mainly intact while the extensive the greater part were being still left in ruins or disappeared entirely. Consequently Selby is an architectural gem and reminder of what we have shed elsewhere.
The monastic complicated itself has completely vanished, what remains is the total abbey church (unusually complete, more often these great properties have been only partly preserved, if at all). Considerably of the Norman developing stays, the nave remaining a very good illustration of Romanesque architecture, whilst the choir is a good exercise in Adorned Gothic from the 14th century with an desirable east window whose glass closely follows the original layout. The three towers add good dignity to the developing, even so these are primarily early 20th century additions, necessitated by other episodes in the abbey’s background significantly less lucky than it’s being spared by the Dissolution.
The church’s fortunes took a change for the worst in 1690 when the upper fifty percent of the Norman central tower collapsed, demolishing the south transept as it fell which remained in ruins until extra just lately. The prime of the tower was later rebuilt in Georgian model but this was taken out by the conclusion of the Victorian period of time for the duration of a extensive restoration of the making (no question a substitution was supposed but not promptly realised).
Catastrophe then struck in 1906 when a major fireplace engulfed the constructing (starting up in the organ-chamber off the north transept) and wrecked all the furniture of the choir and the significant ceilings of nave, choir and transept, leaving the church in a pitiful ruined condition. Remarkably the town rallied driving restoration and the overall church was repaired and back in whole use within 3 decades of the calamity.
Extra impressive nonetheless was supplemental transformation of the exterior that followed under architect John Oldrid Scott who ultimately rebuilt the upper phase of the central tower and the south transept (both of those truncated since 1690) in 1912. At last in 1935 the west towers were lifted to their current peak (they were never concluded in medieval occasions) giving us the majestic triple-towered church we see right now for the 1st time in its history, and a church reworked far more effectively and considerably in the space of a couple many years than any one frequently could possibly realise from its homogeneous appearance right now.
Stepping into the good church today a single is usually aware that so a lot has been restored in the early 20th century, but the function has been superbly performed and some previous attributes these as the wood font-include survived the blaze. Other aspects have been a lot less fortunate, the 14th century glass in the east window suffered poorly and what we see right now is a thorough duplicate of the primary (a few fragments of the original can be observed in the north choir aisle close by). Through the church the high ceilings are adorned with gloriously gilded bosses that enliven the inside, most once again are copies of the burned originals but successfully echo the medieval spirit.
Selby Abbey is a person of the terrific church buildings of England and cannot fail to impress the visitor. It is typically open to guests and I observed the locals quite welcoming. I hope to return once more some day.
www.selbyabbey.org.uk/
For a much more entertainingly composed even though remarkably insightful summary of the Abbey’s architecture see under:-
stainedglassattitudes.wordpress.com/2015/09/17/selby-the-…
Posted by Aidan McRae Thomson on 2022-01-21 16:45:01
Tagged: , Selby , Abbey , church , Yorkshire , inside , woodwork
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