Selby Abbey

After Brodsworth we drove on into North Yorkshire and spent the night in a beautiful and quiet rural car park, by Burn Bridge, on the Selby Canal. Fisher-persons and dog-walkers, all gone before sunset. Next morning, July 21st, we began a three church spree, beginning with Selby Abbey, another five star parish church that, until 1539, had been the main church for one of England's more prominent and prosperous abbeys. Selby Abbey church could pass for a cathedral in most parts of the world, at least in size and grandeur. It suffered relatively little in the Dissolution, a bit more in the Civil War, and quite bit in subsidence and a 1906 fire. But it was always renovated or rebuilt. And it has one surpassingly interesting architectural quirk.

View from the crossing

From the quire

Vicki studies a window

The great east window, 1330; very old for England, very
rare to have survived Cromell

Artfully conflates the "Tree" of Jesse with the Last Judgement

Can't tell the players without a program; the educational
program at Selby was superlative, as good as most cathedrals

North aisle

Helpful model of the church as it was before the 1906 fire

Actually it gets way more interesting than this

One of the more extreme instances of subsidence in this church; a bit scary, really;
like the York Minster, its foundation consisted of 4 feet of sand...

Cafe/gift shoppe...most of the five-bangers have such

Nave view

Levitating font hood

So here it gets really crazy; this is the south (starboard) elevation in the nave;
nice double lancet Gothic arches in the gallery (pointy things)(never mind the
big Roman arches below)

Then, from the same place, you look at the left elevation and...no pointy arches!
Normally, in Medieval churches you expect to see some degree of transition,
evolution, especially if the structure took a few centuries to build, BUT, the
transition is always west to east, or east to west, NEVER on opposite sides of
the nave; totally weird and worth the price of admission all by itself; obviously
there was a committee of architects that decided to split the difference...

Thus: compare the left and right galleries

Moving right along, enjoying the sculptural program outside

Not funny

Restored?

View from the starboard bow, with the great east window to the right