Selby Abbey - Selby, West Yorkshire (Pvt)
Selby Abbey dominates the town centre of Selby today, much as it must have done for the last nine hundred years. After William the Conqueror's severe punishment of the North of England, Selby became the first new monastery to be founded in the North as a statement of permanence and Benedictine rule (favoured by the Normans). The monk who was granted William's charter for the monastery was Benedict, who had travelled from Auxerre in France, bringing with him the finger of St. Germain, a fourth century saint who had been to England previously while complete and alive, on a mission to help unite the burgeoning Christian community here.
Benedict was granted land both for the actual monastery buildings, and further afield, for its up-keep and he built a wooden abbey for worship. Abbot Hugh, succeeding Benedict, started to build in stone, transported by a specially dug waterway from Monk Fryston and it is this abbey that formed the earliest parts of the present building. Abbot Hugh, unusually, was a man of God who worked beside the labourers on the building, giving his wages away to the poor. The site has since had problems with subsidence (visible in the crumpled arches around the tower), but only after the original weight of stone was considerably added to. In Hugh's day, they were skilled in both construction and design.
Substantial parts of the Norman stonework remain visible, notably the deeply carved pillars and archways of the Nave and Crossing. The appearance is somewhat similar to Durham Cathedral, although on a smaller scale and with a lighter touch. The doorways on the West Front and the North wall also date from this time, with their boldly carved abstract arches and stylised foliage. As the building progressed, the newer styles of stonework and construction came in; the upper parts of the Nave and the West Front showing the more elegant Early English slimmer columns and pointed arches. From the late thirteenth century, a new Choir was built around the old one, enlarging this important area where the monks prayed their office. The addition of the impressive Jesse window at the East End, with its unusual and beautiful tracery patterns in the mid fourteenth century resulted in the gently decorative abbey church, much as we can see it today.
Of course, the abbey's history did not end with the medieval stages of construction. At the Reformation, Selby could not escape the destructive power of Henry VIII's commissioners and the remaining monks were disbanded and pensioned off. In contrast to many of the northern abbeys, such as Fountains and Rievaulx, Selby was saved from utter devastation by the continued use of the church by the local population. As a Benedictine Abbey, the surrounding populace had always come here for their religious observance and even though the form and language of the services had changed, habits are hard to break. The Abbey church has been through some tough times even after the Reformation - during the Civil War, the royalist army used it as a barracks and stable in 1643 and the upper part of the central tower collapsed due largely to neglect in 1690.
Restoration was sensitively carried out much later by Sir George Gilbert Scott in 1871, but a further disaster occurred in 1906, when a fire burned down the old timber roof. Further restoration and a massive cleaning of centuries of grime have left the venerable old church in its present beautiful state. Off the main tourist track as Selby is, it provides a peaceful and gently contemplative glimpse of the continuation of Christian worship in the town. The monastery and all its domestic buildings are long gone, but the church itself, with its Norman, Early English and later decoration is a delight.
The Selby Abbey web site can be located at: http://www.selbyabbey.org.uk/