Chapel of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 127 August 2024 to amend the description

SE 3171 1/23

RIPON MAGDALEN'S ROAD (east side) Chapel of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene

(formerly listed as Hospital of St Mary Magdalene, Stonebridgegate (Chapel))

27.5.49

I

Hospital founded by Archbishop Thurstan (Archbishop 1114-40), and the chapel must date from shortly after the foundation. South doorway C12. Otherwise substantially C15. Hammer-dressed limestone. Low-pitched roof with parapets; finial on east gable; bellcote on west gable. Low side window on south site. Four-light Perpendicular east window. Interior has very good furnishings, including C15 screen, medieval stone altar, medieval tessellated pavement, and C17 communion rail with turned balusters.

History: the Hospital of St Mary Magdalene is slightly younger than that of St John, but this chapel is the only complete fragment of any of Ripon's medieval hospitals to survive from the time of its foundation. It had sisters and a priest, whose duties were to feed and shelter those affected by leprosy, maintain blind priests born in Ripon, and give alms to the poor.

Subsequent Archbishops provided it with brothers also, and a master; and in 1295 Archbishop Romanus decided that the master had to be a resident prebendary of the College. Subsequently the mastership was held by Abbot Marmaduke Bradley, the last Abbot of Fountains, who ended his days as a prebendary of Ripon. In 1544-45 it was re-organised as an Almshouse by Archbishop Lee; and when James I re-founded the college in 1604 its mastership (together with that of St John) was annexed to the new foundation as a perpetual gift. From the late C17 the masterships of the two hospitals were amalgamated in the office of Dean of Ripon.

As a result of the Charity Commissioners' Report of 1820, the two hospitals' estates were re-organised in 1864, enabling the premises to be rebuilt.

The Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535) reveals that the master (Marmaduke Bradley) had a "mansion house", garden and orchard. The Charity Commissioners in 1820 describe apartments for six sisters and a chapel across the street. There is no mention of the hospital buildings in either case, but it is known that there had been a separate house for sufferers of leprosy, demolished shortly before 1352 for lack of patients.

Listing NGR: SE3172871780