XXXV
Leaving Doncaster and its racing and coaching memories behind, we come out upon the open road again by Frenchgate, past the unprepossessing “Volunteer” inn, in whose yard Mendoza and Humphries brought off their prize-fight in 1790; past Marshgate and over the dirty Don to a parting of the ways. To the left goes the Ferrybridge, Wetherby, and Boroughbridge route to the North; to the right, that by way of Selby and York. Both fall into one again at Northallerton; both claim to be the true Great North Road; and both were largely travelled, so that we shall have to pay attention to either. In the first instance, we will go via York, the mail-route in later coaching days, and as flat and uninteresting a road, so far as the cathedral city, as it is possible to imagine. Beginning with the suburban village of Bentley, with its ugly new cottages and handsome new church, it continues, with ruts and loose stones as its chief features, to Askerne, passing through lonely woods and past pools and lakes, with a stray grouse or so, and astonished hares and rabbits, as the sole witnesses of the explorer’s progress in these deserted ways. Off to the right-hand, two miles or so away, goes the Great Northern Railway, one of the causes of this solitude, to meet the North Eastern at Shaftholme Junction, where, as the chairman said, many years ago, the Great Northern ends, ingloriously, “in a ploughed field.”
Askerne, in a situation of great natural beauty, amidst limestone rocks and lakes, and with the advantage of possessing medicinal springs, has been, like most Yorkshire villages, made hideous by its houses and cottages, inconceivably ugly to those who have not seen what abominable places Yorkshire folk are capable of building and living in. Askerne’s fame as what its inhabitants call a “spawing place” has not spread of late, but its old pump-room and its lake are the resorts of York and Doncaster’s trippers in summer-time, and those holiday-makers derive just as much health from rowing in pleasure-boats on the lake as did their forefathers, who, a hundred years ago, quaffed its evil-tasting sulphurous waters.
Thus Askerne. Between it and Selby, a distance of thirteen miles, the road and the country around are but parts of a flat, watery, treeless, featureless plain, its negative qualities tempered by the frankly mean and ugly villages on the way, and criss-crossed by railways, sluggish rivers, and unlovely canals. So utterly without interest is the road, that a crude girder-bridge or a gaunt and forbidding flour-mill remain vividly impressed upon the mental retina for lack of any other outstanding objects.
Nearing Selby, the octagonal Perpendicular lantern and spire of Brayton church, curiously imposed upon a Norman tower, attracts attention as much by the relief they give from the deadly dulness just encountered as for their own sake; although they are beautiful and interesting, the lantern having been designed to hold a cresset beacon by which the travellers of the Middle Ages were guided at night across the perilous waste; the spire serving the same office by day. Here, too, the isolated hills of Brayton Burf and Hambleton Hough, three miles away, show prominently, less by reason of their height, which is inconsiderable, than on account of the surrounding levels, which give importance to the slightest rise.
Brayton, which, apart from its beautiful church, is about as miserable a hole as it is possible to find in all Yorkshire (and that is saying a good deal), is a kind of outpost between Selby and these wilds, standing a mile and a half in advance of the town. In that mile and a half the builders are busy erecting a flagrant suburb, so that the traveller presses on, curious to witness the prosperity of Selby itself, arguable from these signs. Even without them, Selby is approached with expectancy, for its abbey is famous, and abbeys imply picturesque towns.
From this point of view Selby is distinctly disappointing. The glorious Abbey, now the parish church, is all, and more than, one expects, and the superlatively cobble-stoned Market-place, painful to walk in, is picturesque to look at; but the rest is an effect of meanness. Mean old houses of no great age; mean new ones; mean and threadbare waterside industries; second-hand clothes-shops, coal-grit, muddy waters and foreshores of the slimy Ouse, shabby rope-walks, and dirty alleys: these are Selby.
You forget all this before that beautiful Abbey, whose imposing west front faces the Market-place, and whose great length is revealed only by degrees. Alike in size and beauty, it shows itself in a long crescendo to the admiring amateur of architecture, who proceeds from the combined loveliness of the Norman, Early English, and Perpendicular west front, to the entrance by the grand Transitional Norman-Early English north porch, thence to the solemn majesty of the purely Norman nave, ending with the light and graceful Decorated choir and Lady Chapel. The upper stage of the tower fell in 1690, and destroyed the south transept.
A very destructive fire occurred in October 1906, and opportunity was afterwards taken of doing a good deal of general restoration.
Before leaving the town of Selby, let us look at the commonplace little square called Church Hill. A spirit-level might reveal it to be an eminence of twelve inches or so above the common level of Selby, but to the evidence of eyes or feet it is in no way distinguished from its neighbouring streets. Yet it must have presented the appearance of a hillock when the original founder of the Abbey came here in 1068, voyaging up the Ouse and landing at this first likely place on its then lovely banks. This founder was a certain Benedict, a monk of Auxerre, who, having one of those convenient dreams which came to the pious ones of that time when they wanted to steal something, made off with the Holy Finger of St. Germanus; rather appropriate spoil, by the way, for the light-fingered Benedict. Arriving in England, he met an Englishman who gave him a golden reliquary. With this, he took ship from Lyme Regis and sailed to the Humber and the Ouse; landing, as we have seen, here, and planting a cross on the river bank, where he erected a hut for himself under an oak-tree. A few days later, Hugh, the Norman sheriff of Yorkshire, came up the Ouse, by chance, and not, as might be supposed, to arrest Benedict on a charge of petty larceny. He was impressed by the devoutness of the holy man, and sent workmen to build the original wooden place of worship at Selby, on the spot now known as Church Hill, not a stone’s throw from the existing Abbey.
Centuries passed. The first building was swept away, and even the cemetery which afterwards occupied the site was forgotten and built over, becoming a square of houses, among which was the “Crown” inn. From 1798 until 1876, when it was rebuilt, the old “Crown” kept an odd secret. To understand this, we must go back to 1798, when the neighbourhood of Selby acquired an ill name for highway robberies. Among other outrages, a mailbag was stolen from the York postboy, on the evening of February 22 in that year. The Postmaster of York reported the affair to the Postmaster-General in the following terms:—
“Sir,
“I am sorry to acquaint you that the postboy coming from Selby to this city was robbed of his mail, between six and seven o’clock this evening. About three miles this side Selby he was accosted by a man on foot with a gun in his hand, who asked him if he was the postboy, and at the same time seizing hold of the bridle. Without waiting for any answer, he told the boy he must immediately unstrap the mail and give it to him, pointing the muzzle of the gun at him whilst he did it. When he had given up the mail, the boy begged he would not hurt him, to which the man replied, “He need not be afraid,” and at the same time pulled the bridle from the horse’s head. The horse immediately galloped off with the boy, who had never dismounted. He was a stout man, dressed in a dark jacket, and had the appearance of a heckler. The boy was too much frightened to make any other remark upon his person, and says he was totally unknown to him.
“The mail contained bags for Howden and London, Howden and York, and Selby and York. I have informed the surveyors of the robbery, and have forwarded handbills this night, to be distributed in the country, and will take care to insert it in the first paper published here. Waiting your further instructions,—I remain, with respect, Sir,
“Your Obliged and Obedient Humble Servant,
“Thos. Oldfield.”
A reward of two hundred pounds was offered for the discovery of the highwayman, but without effect, and the matter was forgotten in the dusty archives of the G.P.O., until it was brought to notice again by the singular discovery of one of the stolen bags in the roof of the “Crown” when being demolished in 1876. Stuffed in between the rafters and the tiles, the workmen came upon a worn and rotten coat, a “sou’wester” hat, and a mail-bag marked “Selby.” Thus, nearly eighty years after the affair, and when every one concerned in it must long since have been no more, this incriminating evidence came to light. The Postmaster-General of that time claimed the bag, and it was, after some dispute about the ownership, handed over to him, and is now in the Post Office Museum.
A number of skeletons were discovered in digging foundations for the new inn, and it was darkly conjectured that the old house had had its gruesome secrets, dating from the times when inns were not infrequently the nests of murderers; until local antiquaries pointing out that the name of the place was Church Hill, and that this was an ancient grave-yard, the excitement ceased. This view was borne out by the fact that in many cases the bodies had been enclosed in rude coffins, made of hollowed tree-trunks; and it was rightly said that murderers would not have buried their victims with so much consideration.