Ripon Minster (Cathedral Church Of St Peter And Wilfrid)

Ripon Minster (Cathedral Church of St Peter and Wilfrid)

Ripon Minster is a cathedral with a complex and layered history stretching back over thirteen centuries. The site began as a Scottish monastery, reorganised by St Wilfrid along Benedictine lines around 660. Between 660 and the Archiepiscopate of Ealdred (1060–69), it was refounded as a College of secular canons with seven prebends (attached to particular localities from 1301 onwards), under the patronage of the Archbishop of York. The building served simultaneously as a parish church, a role it maintained after the College was dissolved at the Dissolution of the Chantries in 1547. James I refounded the College in 1604 with a modified structure comprising a Dean, a sub-Dean, and non-territorial prebendaries. It was dissolved during the Commonwealth but restored in 1660. When Ripon became a diocese in 1836—taking in the western part of the Diocese of York and the Yorkshire portion of the Diocese of Chester—the College was replaced by a Dean and Chapter, and the church became a cathedral, which it remains today.

The building incorporates parts of St Wilfrid's original monastery alongside substantial medieval collegiate church fabric, enriched by 19th-century restorations and improvements undertaken to meet cathedral standards.

The Anglo-Saxon crypt survives. The Chapter House may be Norman, though its vaulting appears to be 13th century. The remainder of the building was begun by Archbishop Roger of Pont l'Evêque (1154–81) and completed by Archbishop Walter Gray (1215–55), with the exception of the eastern bays of the choir, the nave aisles, and the library. Notably, while Archbishop Roger's work at York is late Norman in character, his work here displays a fully developed and sophisticated early Gothic style. The eastern bays of the choir, including sumptuous sedilia in the Lincolnshire-Nottinghamshire-East Riding style of around 1320, probably date from the early 14th century. The library also dates to the 14th century. The south side of the western bays of the choir was altered in the 15th century, as was the pulpitum. The nave underwent drastic alteration in the early 16th century when aisles were added; the south transept east side clerestory also probably dates from this period. Work in 1514 and again in 1520–21 was carried out under Christopher Scure, previously master mason at Durham. The crossing tower's spire collapsed in 1615; the spires on the two western towers were taken down in 1664.

The building underwent significant restorations: by Edward Blore in 1829–31, by William Railton in 1843–44, and by Sir Gilbert Scott in 1862. Scott's campaign was the most drastic, principally involving the removal of tracery from the lancets of the west front, giving them their well-known though illusory appearance of being slightly earlier than they actually are, a practice conforming to advanced architectural taste of the 1860s.

The furnishings are of exceptional quality. The choir stalls and misericords are in the Nantwich-Manchester-Lancaster style of the late 15th century, dated 1489 and 1494. An outstanding pulpit of 1913 by Harry Wilson displays early Art Deco manner.

The outstanding monument is that to William Weddell (circa 1789) by Joseph Nollekens. Other notable monuments include that to Sir Thomas Markenfield (circa 1497); Hugh Ripley, the first Mayor under the 1604 constitution (circa 1637, though destroyed during the Civil War and replaced in 1730 by a replica carved by the French émigré Daniel Harver of York); and Sir Edward Blackett (died 1718) by John Hancock, standing 24 feet high. Many other good though lesser monuments grace the cathedral, including an unusual plaster wall monument to Mrs Ann Hutchinson (died 1730). Many fine tomb slabs remain in situ.