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 7th century when Saint
Wilfrid built one of England’s first stone churches on this
site, and still renewed every 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.
Today’s 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:
“In 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.”
Devastated by the English king in
AD 948 as a warning to the Archbishop of York, only the crypt
of Wilfrid’s church
survived but today this tiny 7th century chapel rests complete
beneath the later grandeur of Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque’s
12th century minster.
A second minster – built to minister the love of God
to the local community – soon arose at Ripon, but it
too perished – 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
Roger’s minster.
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 Cathedral’s
exquisite misericords were carved about this time.
But in 1547,
before this work was finished, Edward VI dissolved Ripon’s
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.
Read about St. Wilfrid >>
