Yorksview

For over a thousand years Ripon policed its own streets at the citizens’ expense. Still every night at 9 o’clock the Ripon Wakeman in his three-cornered hat sets the night watch by blowing his horn at the four corners of the obelisk in the Market Place.

The city of course grew up around the Church, now a Cathedral. St Wilfrid built one of England’s first stone churches here in 672, a basilica constructed by masons, plasterers and glaziers brought from France and Italy as England began to pull out of the darkest of the Dark Ages. This Church was wrecked by the Danes but the Saxon crypt is still beneath the present Cathedral which was commissioned in 1080 by Thomas of Bayeux, the first Norman Archbishop of York after the Conqueror’s destruction of much of the north of England as a lesson for the rebellion of 1069.

The Cathedral was re-built in the Norman Transitional style around 1180 and the Early English west front was added in 1220. About 1300 Archbishop Romanus extended the east end in the Decorated style. The central tower collapsed in 1450 and reconstruction followed. The Minster finally became a Cathedral in 1836, the centre of the new Diocese of Ripon.

Old converted Windmill

Wooden Shelter

Much of the stained glass was lost during a raid by Cromwell’s soldiers, not vandals but godly men who believed that God should be worshipped simply, without bells and smells. The pulpit is a hundred years old in art nouveau style. The font is Tudor. For 1300 years St Wilfrid’s cathedral has welcomed Christians to worship.

Defoe described the Market Square as ‘the finest and most beautiful square that is to be seen in England’. To get there from the Cathedral you walk along Kirkgate past Duck Hill on the left. The market cross is an obelisk rising to 90 feet above the square, said to be the oldest free standing obelisk in England. It dates from the eighteenth century and was designed by Hawksmoor. Around the square are Georgian and Victorian buildings and some others best ignored. In a corner of the square is a 100 year old cabmen’s wooden wheeled shelter, unique and carefully restored by Ripon Civic Society. Ripon’s promotional material describes the city as ‘a shoppers’ paradise’; well, you should be warned there’s no Harvey Nichols or Macy’s but, hey, who goes to a place like Ripon for the shops. There are plenty of tea-shops and bars old and new and a Ripon Plaques Trail to enable visitors to appreciate the city’s history.

Also here are the Spa Gardens with the Victorian bandstand, regular race meetings at the Racecourse, a restored canal and marina as well as the River Ure, the Yorkshire Law and Order Museum and the timber-framed 16th century Wakeman’s House. Close by are Fountains Abbey, Newby Hall, Norton Conyers and the Black Sheep Brewery at Masham.

The Ripon Jewel was found close to the Cathedral in 1976. It is a small gold roundel inlaid with gems and about one inch in diameter. The design suggests it dates from the Church’s earliest days, perhaps made to adorn a casket or cross on the orders of St Wilfrid himself.

Ripon Cathedral

Telephone boxes in the Market Square

Andy Warhol said something to the effect that in the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes. In English history just about everywhere has had its moment of limelight on the national stage. In 1569 the Percies led a revolt against Elizabeth I in favour of Mary, Queen of Scots. They took Durham, then Ripon and had Mass said in the Cathedral there. This was the Revolt of the Northern Earls - the Rising in the North. It didn’t last long and the rebels were dealt with in the usual way. Elizabeth and England were soon to face a more formidable foe in the shape of the Armada sent by Philip II of Spain.

Ripon claims to have been granted a charter by Alfred the Great in 886 which, if so, would make it England’s oldest chartered town. The Rough Guide to England describes Ripon as ‘unassuming’. It is unpretentious, it doesn’t flash its history at you like York. But history there is in spades. As Arthur Mee says, Ripon was already old when Athelstan, First King of All England, gave it the privilege of sanctuary. But then Arthur was never one for understatement.