Colin Crosby Heritage Tours

Two Yorkshire Towns Visited

I visited two Yorkshire towns recently – Wetherby and Selby.

I went on a Coach Trip with Woods Coaches – much as I enjoy running my own trips (the next is to Liverpool on Saturday 26th November), it’s rather nice sometimes to be just a passenger with no responsibility.

Wetherby is a pleasant market town on the River Wharfe and actually on the old Great North Road. Originally, it was owned by the Knights Templar, but a later owner, the Duke of Devonshire, sold almost the whole town to finance the building of Chatsworth.

There used to be a castle at Wetherby. On the site of the castle, on what must have been a splendid site overlooking the river, a housing estate is being built.

Selby, on the River Ouse, has rather more visible history, largely in the shape of Selby Abbey, which magnificently dominates the town centre. Down by the river, some rather unprepossessing warehouse buildings turn out to be the 14th century Abbots Staith.

Selby’s place in English history is assured, if only for the fact that Henry I was born there. Henry moved with great haste to be crowned when he heard that his brother William Rufus had been “accidentally” killed in the New Forest.