As Selby Abbey approach one year since the start of their £1 million major restoration and storytelling project, they’ve revealed an exciting progress update.
Selby Abbey: The Origin Stories, which began in late summer 2025 and will continue through to autumn 2027, is aiming to deliver essential repairs to the Grade I listed building, and create a public engagement programme around the Abbey’s spectacular St Germain window and a new Monastic Garden.
This week, the Abbey have been using cutting-edge wayfinding technology to discover what’s underneath the Abbey’s graveyard.
Chris Tuckley, the project manager for Selby Abbey, The Origin Stories, explained more about the progress of the project.
The National Lottery Heritage Fund funded project, “is currently in its delivery phase,” said Chris. “We’re approaching the one year mark and there’s lots of exciting work going on here at Selby Abbey.”
Working with UK archaeological Reclaim Heritage, a survey has been taking place of the churchyard at Selby Abbey, using technology called a ground penetrating radar survey.
“It’s very technical,” explained Chris Caswell, director and archaeologist at Reclaim Heritage. “We’ve got three different computers all talking to each other, firing lasers above and below ground, and we’re mapping what’s in the graveyard up to a depth of about three metres below the ground.
“We’ve been here since Monday, and we’ll be surveying back and forth all across the South Green, looking for any structural remains or coffins, or anything that’s below the ground.”
And though it’s still early days, the project are starting to get an idea of what could be under the ground.
“I’m very hopeful that it’s traces of the monastic buildings showing up,” said Chris Tuckley.
“This is one of our key origin stories here, is the history of Selby Abbey as a monastery, and it was dissolved during Henry the Eighth’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1539 and not a great deal about the monastic history of Selby Abbey is known, but we know that it is of great interest to the Selby community and visitors to Selby Abbey as well.
“So we’re hoping if we can trace some of these long vanished buildings it will shine a little bit of a light on this misunderstood, neglected aspect of Selby Abbey history.”
Find out more about the Selby Abbey: The Origin Stories at their website here.
