Chapel Of St John The Baptist

SE 3170 RIPON BONDGATE 5/67 (east side) 27.5.4 Chapel of St John the GV Baptist

II

Mid-C19. Limestone ashlar. Slate roof. Nave and polygonally-apsed chancel. Bell-cote corbelled as on west gable. South porch of timber with cusped openwork tracered sides. Hipped roofed vestry. Small, and 2 and 4-light Perpendicular windows. Four-light Early English window at west end with intersecting bar tracery.

History. The Hospital of St John, of which this is the successor chapel, was founded between 1109 and 1114 by Archbishop Thomas II of York, for 3 purposes; to provide hospitality for poor travellers, to support 4 or 5 poor clerks teaching in Ripon, and to provide soup for the poor. It was re-endowed in 1340 by the then Master, David de Wollore, Master of the Rolls to Edward III, and a canon of Ripon, in order to support of chaplain and poor boys attending the grammar schools in Ripon. In 1544-5 it was re-organised as an Almshouse by Archbishop Lee; and when James I re-founded the College in 1604 its mastership (together with the Hospital of St Mary) was annexed to the new foundation as a perpetual gift. From the late C17 the masterships of the 2 hospitals were amalgamated in the office of Dean of Ripon.

In this period, when the Mastership was a sinecure, the Hospital had some notable masters including John Bramhall (Inter Archbishop of Armagh) (Master 1625-34), his successor Dr John Wilkins (Oliver Cromwell's brother-in-law, co-founder of the Royal Society and Bishop of Chester), and, in the C18, Heneage Dering, reputed to be the richest cleric in England.

As a result of the Charity Commissioners' Report of 1800, the 2 hospitals' estates were re-organised in 1864, enabling the premises to be rebuilt.

The mediaeval chapel was not mentioned in the Valor Ecclesiasticus (1535), so it was either insignificant or non-existent. A chapel existed by 1812, when it was let to a National School. In 1864 the school had moved, and the chapel was ruins. The present chapel was built on an ambitious scale, with seating for 200, at a cost of £1,200, thereby incurring a debt of £700.

Listing NGR: SE3137770890