City in North Yorkshire, England
Ripon
Every night at 9pm, one of Ripon's hornblowers sounds a horn in the Market Square, as the city says it has done since 886. The watch is still set.
Key information
- County
- North Yorkshire
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 16,000 (2011 Census)
- Known for
- The nightly Hornblower, a Saxon crypt, and Fountains Abbey next door
- What locals are called
- Riponians
- Famous people
- St Wilfrid, William Aislabie, Lewis Carroll's father Charles Dodgson
About Ripon
The horn that sounds at nine o'clock
Every evening at 9pm, one of Ripon's team of hornblowers steps up to the obelisk in the Market Square and blows a horn at each of its four corners. Then the hornblower goes to the mayor's house and blows it again. The ritual is called setting the watch, and the city says it has been done nightly since 886. The idea was simple. Once the horn sounded, the townsfolk could settle down for the night, because a watchman would guard their property until morning. If anything was stolen while the watch was set, the Wakeman was supposed to pay compensation out of his own pocket. The Wakeman was the chief officer of the town. In 1604 a mayor took over the Wakeman's civic role, while the Hornblower carried on the ceremonial setting of the watch. The town hall carries a motto in the same spirit: "Except ye Lord keep ye Cittie, ye Wakeman waketh in vain." You can see the Wakeman's House on the square, and the horn is still sounded every night, whatever the weather.
A crypt older than England
Ripon Cathedral is built over something far older than itself. In the 670s St Wilfrid, one of the great churchmen of Anglo-Saxon Northumbria, had a stone church built here. Its crypt survives beneath the cathedral and is among the oldest surviving church structures in England. The crypt is tiny and dark, with a narrow passage known as St Wilfrid's Needle. Local legend says that only the pure of heart could squeeze through it, which made it a popular test of virtue. Upstairs, the cathedral has a magnificent late medieval choir with carved misericords, the little ledges under the seats where the canons and other clergy could rest during long services. The carvers had a sharp sense of humour, and the creatures and scenes they left behind still catch visitors out.
Alice's rabbit hole, perhaps
Lewis Carroll's father, Charles Dodgson, became a canon of Ripon Cathedral in 1852, and the family spent time in the city. Carroll himself was at school and then university, but he knew the place. Riponians like to point out that the cathedral's carvings include a griffin and a rabbit. Those two creatures turn up in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and the city has long enjoyed the idea that a young Dodgson stared at them during sermons. It cannot be proved, but it is a lovely thought. The cathedral has made a modest industry of the link, and Ripon is a neat stop on the trail of Carroll's Yorkshire connections.
Spurs, spas and horses
Ripon was once famous for its spurs. In the 17th century a pair of Ripon rowels was a mark of quality, and the saying "as true steel as Ripon rowels" was a compliment to the town's metalworkers. When James I visited in 1617, the city is said to have presented him with a pair. Horses stayed part of the story. Horse racing in Ripon dates back to 1664, and the present Ripon Racecourse on Boroughbridge Road opened in 1900. It still draws crowds to the edge of the city. The city also had a go at being a spa town, and the Ripon Spa Baths, with their Edwardian style, are a reminder of the days when people came to take the waters.
The great garden next door
A few miles away lie the ruins of Fountains Abbey, a Cistercian monastery founded in 1132. After the Dissolution, its stones and its setting became part of Studley Royal, a landscaped water garden created in the 18th century by John Aislabie and then his son William. William Aislabie represented Ripon in Parliament from 1721 to 1781. The obelisk in the Market Square dates from 1702, when it replaced an earlier market cross, and is associated with his father, John Aislabie. Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1986. Ripon is the natural base for the site, and for visitors heading on towards the Yorkshire Dales. It is one of England's smallest cities, but it has a cathedral, a racecourse, a nightly ceremony and a World Heritage Site within a few miles of its centre.