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Stay with us and visit Ripon Cathedral

1300 Years of Worship and History

For over 1300 years people have been coming to worship and pray at Ripon. The Cathedral building itself is part of this continuing act of worship, begun in the C7th when Saint Wilfrid built one of Englandās first stone churches on this site, and still renewed ever day. Within the nave and choir, you can see the evidence of 800 years in which master craftsmen have expressed their faith in wood and stone. Todayās church is in fact the fourth to have stood on this site. Saint Wilfrid brought stonemasons, plasterers and glaziers from France and Italy to build his great basilica in AD 672. A contemporary account by Eddius Stephanus tells us

The crypt (AD 672), the only remainder of the original church ćIn Ripon, Saint Wilfrid built and completed from the foundations to the roof a church of dressed stone, supported by various columns and side-aisles to a great height and many windows, arched vaults and a winding cloister.ä Devastated by the English king in AD 948 as a warning to the Archbishop of York, only the crypt of Wilfridās church survived but today this tiny C7th chapel rests complete beneath the later grandeur of Archbishop Roger de Pont lāEvqueās C12th minster. A second minster ö built to minister the love of God to the local community ö soon arose at Ripon, but it too perished ö this time in 1069 at the hands of William the Conqueror. Thomas of Bayeux, first Norman Archbishop of York,then instigated the construction of a third church, traces of which were incorporated into the later chapter house of Rogerās minster.

A 17th-century engraving by King showing the west front as it was before 1660 The exceptional Early English west front was added in 1220, its twin towers originally crowned with wooden spires and lead. Major rebuilding had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the War of the Roses but commenced after the accession of Henry VII and the restoration of peace in 1485. The nave was widened and the central tower partially rebuilt. Ripon Cathedrals exquisite misericords were carved about this time. But in 1547, before this work was finished,

Edward VI dissolved Riponās college of canons. All revenues were appropriated by the Crown and the tower never received its last Perpendicular arches. It was not until 1604 that James I issued his Charter of Restoration. The minster finally became a cathedral (the church where the Bishop has his cathedra or throne) in 1836, the focal point of the newly created Diocese of Ripon - the first to be established since the Reformation.

Music is an integral part of the cathedral's life in the twenty first century. Ripon Cathedral is lucky to possess an outstanding nineteenth-century organ, two talented organists and a flourishing choir school. When its own choir is not in residence, visiting choirs sing choral services.