Eggborough is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

, England, close to the county borders with

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a Metropolitan counties of England, metropolitan and Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and De ...

and the East Riding. The village is situated at the junction of the A19 and the A645, approximately east of

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England. It lies to the east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the ...

and south-west of

Selby Selby is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, south of York on the River Ouse. At the 2021 Census, it had a population of 17,193. The town was historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire; from 1974 until 2023, ...

. It is also close to the M62.

History

Eggborough (as well as High and Low Eggborough) is mentioned in

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086 and was formerly in the

Wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, and in Cumberland County in the British Colony of ...

of Osgoldcross. The name derives from ''Ecga's Burh'', a fortification belonging to a person named ''Ecga''. Eggborough was part of the

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

until 1 April 1974, when it became part of the

Selby District Selby District was a local government district of North Yorkshire, England, from 1974 to 2023. Its council was based in the town of Selby. The district had a population of 83,449 at the 2011 Census. The southernmost district of North Yorks ...

of North Yorkshire. On 1 April 2023 Selby District was abolished and Eggborough became part of the new North Yorkshire unitary authority area. Mill of Masts - geograph

There is a pub in the village, the Horse and Jockey. There is a cricket club, which was formed in 1902 just up from the Horse & Jockey and is the home of Whitley Bridge Cricket Club. There is also a sports and leisure complex in the grounds of the nearby

Eggborough Power Station Eggborough power station was a coal-fired power station in North Yorkshire, England, which was capable of co-firing biomass. It was situated on the River Aire, between the towns of Knottingley and Snaith, deriving its name from the nearby vi ...

. The complex offers a nine-hole golf course, two miniature football pitches, two full-size football pitches, a bowling green, a children's play area, a miniature railway, a licensed bar, snooker, pool, a green room and a concert hall. The centre of the village used to be the location of a Bowman's Flour Mill, but it ceased production in 2016. Close to Eggborough is the site of French-owned

Saint-Gobain Compagnie de Saint-Gobain S.A. () is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris as the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs, and today headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a ...

Glass, Europe's leading producer of float (flat) glass. The plant, which opened in 1998, employs over 170 people and produces of flat glass per year. The large village hall on Selby Road is well used and is shared with the residents of Whitley Bridge, which has no village hall of its own. Other activities take place at the Methodist Hall and the Westfield Centre. The village also has its own football team, Eggborough Eagles, which is based at the Eggborough Sports and Leisure Complex. The Eggborough Eagles were founded in 2011 by Chairman James Lancaster, Secretary Michael Corr and Manager Michael Shaughnessy. They came fourth in their first-ever season recognised in the Selby and District Invitational League.

Power stations

The village was the site of the

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

-fired

, built in the 1960s and once owned by

British Energy British Energy was the UK's largest electricity generation company by volume, before being taken over by Électricité de France (EDF) in 2009. British Energy operated eight former UK state-owned nuclear power stations and one coal-fired power ...

. Its four turbines could produce a total combined output of 1,960

MWe The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named in honor o ...

. The power station was due to be closed in 2016, but won a reprieve as a backup generator of power until March 2017 and then again until March 2018, when it shut down for good. The current owners are applying for permission to convert the power station to a

gas-fired power plant A gas-fired power plant, sometimes referred to as gas-fired power station, natural gas power plant, or methane gas power plant, is a thermal power station that burns natural gas to generate electricity. Gas-fired power plants generate almost a ...

. There was also a short lived biomass power station, ARBRE Power Station, built by the Kelda Group, owners of

Yorkshire Water Yorkshire Water is a British water supply and treatment utility company servicing West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, the East Riding of Yorkshire, part of North Lincolnshire, most of North Yorkshire and part of Derbyshire, in England. The company ...

, which cost £30 million. The site was developed to burn willow wood grown by local farmers and turn it into gas, however, by August 2002 had gone into liquidation. The capacity of the station was rated at 8 MW. In 2015, DRENL (UK) gained approval to convert the old ARBRE site into an

Energy from waste Waste-to-energy (WtE) or energy-from-waste (EfW) refers to a series of processes designed to convert waste materials into usable forms of energy, typically electricity or heat. As a form of energy recovery, WtE plays a crucial role in both wa ...

(EfW) plant that would process of waste per year to generate 10 MW of electricity.

Transport

The A19 and the A645 intersect in the village, with the A19 being on a north–south axis and having a junction (number 34) on the M62 just south of the village. To the south of the village lies the

Aire and Calder Navigation The Aire and Calder Navigation is the River engineering#Canalization of rivers, canalised section of the River Aire, Rivers Aire and River Calder, West Yorkshire, Calder in West Yorkshire, England. The first improvements to the rivers above Kn ...

. Eggborough is served by railway station on the Pontefract line, but services are limited to just two trains a day to and only one through to .

Governance

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

of the same name exists. It stretches north to West Haddlesey and has a total population of 3,763. It has a parish council consisting of four members. Eggborough was represented on the former Selby District Council by husband-and-wife couple John and Mary McCartney, who are Independents. John is also the North Yorkshire County Councillor for the ward, which includes Eggborough.

Education

Primary-age children attend Whitley and Eggborough Primary School, in Learning Lane on the other side of the M62.

References

External links

EfW proposal leaflet
{{DEFAULTSORT:Eggborough Civil parishes in North Yorkshire Villages in North Yorkshire