Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon / A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric

by Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

The clearstorey windows are actually larger than those of the aisle below, and are again rather acutely pointed for late work. They are of five lights, and the two mullions in the middle are carried up through the head, but a sub-arch comprises the two outer lights on either side. The last window eastwards is of three lights, is shorter than the rest, and has several transoms in the tracery. In the parapet, the coping is not carried down the sides of the battlements as it is on the aisles, and the rudimentary pinnacles spring from grotesque corbels at the string-course, with a plain corbel at the side of each to carry the water-spout.

The Central Tower. North and West Sides.—The central tower of Ripon is probably unique among towers in being divided vertically between two different styles of architecture. Its north and west sides are Archbishop Roger’s work,[38] but the other sides are Perpendicular, having been rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east angle. Seen from the north-west, however, it presents much the same appearance now as in the twelfth century, and either side displays a pair of round-headed windows, with the weathering of the original roof rising high between them and (on the west face) cutting off their corners. The windows have a shaft in the jamb, and the abacus of the capitals is continued round the tower as a string, but interrupted by the buttresses and weatherings, as is also another string below the sills. In the windows of the north side there is a space or tympanum over the inner arch. Each corner of the tower was strengthened by a pair of flat buttresses, with one shaft at the corner itself and another at the inner side of either buttress, and with the shafts banded half way up and again near the top. These buttresses are received in an overhanging corbel-table, above which runs a hollow moulding, filled with dog-tooth ornament of a large size and continued round the projections that serve for gargoyles. The use of this Early English ornament in a scheme which might otherwise be pure Norman affords a good instance of the Transitional character of the work. The battlements are later.

The North Transept, with the three adjacent bays of the choir, gives some idea of the external appearance of Archbishop Roger’s church.[39] The date of the beginning of the work ascribed to him is placed within his lifetime (1154-1181) by his own words quoted in [Chapter I]. The transept is divided by the string-courses into four stages, and has a very massive plinth which is lower than that of the nave, thus expressing the slope of the ground. The west wall is shorter than the east and has two bays only, but south of the second bay, and separated from it by a flat pilaster, is a narrow space, along the top of which are the remains of a cornice: the two bays proper are separated by a recessed buttress of some projection. One round-headed window, divided by a mullion, appears in the second stage; and in the fourth stage are two plain, round-headed windows, not subdivided. The original corbel-table remains above, but it is surmounted by a (probably) fourteenth century battlemented parapet, which is returned over the central buttress, forming a square turret, which has a (renewed) gargoyle below it, and is pierced with a cross. The buttresses at the north-west corner of the transept, where is a staircase, are clustered and rise to the top of the wall, and like most Norman buttresses, and some of Early English date (as in the west front), they do not diminish as they ascend. The large buttress on the west side of this corner has two carved stones built into it at the height of about eighteen feet from the ground. They are covered with patterns resembling the knots so often found on ancient crosses, and are of especial interest as being possibly survivals of the church built by St. Wilfrid.[40] It is noticeable that the first string-course is the only one which is not carried round the buttresses at this corner. A recessed buttress of the same type separates the end of the transept from that of an aisle which is thrown out from its eastern side.

Ronald P. Jones, Photo.]

DOORWAY, NORTH TRANSEPT.

The lowest stage of this north elevation is blank save for a rather interesting doorway set in a thickening of the wall near the western corner. In this doorway the innermost arch is of unusual form—a trefoil resting on corbels—and its edges are left square and plain. Over it is a semicircular arch of three orders with three detached shafts in either jamb, and as usual throughout almost all Archbishop Roger’s work, the arch has the edge-roll between hollows (here on every order), the shafts are detached, their bases round upon square, and their capitals square-topped, with the edge of the abacus hollowed. The capitals here are enriched with good foliage of a rather classical type.

In the stage above are three round-headed windows with a shaft in either jamb and foliage on the capitals. Each of these windows, like that on the west side, and several in the other transept, has been divided by a mullion into two lights, presumably in the fourteenth century.[41] The third stage, which corresponds to the triforium within, is blank here as on the west side, and in the fourth stage are three round-headed windows, plainly recessed and chamfered. The gable, on which stands a plain cross, has been lowered, as is shown by the weathering on the tower, and its sides, after descending, take an upward turn to meet the corners. It is flanked by two lofty square turrets, which have been compared with those on the west front of Tewkesbury. They have a shaft at each angle, are pierced on each face with two round-headed openings under a round arch, with a string below running round the turret, and are surmounted by pyramidal stone caps ending in pommels and having a rude pinnacle at each corner. The end of the aisle is set back, and displays a window like the three above the door, but without the dividing mullion; and above this a round-headed niche, doubtless once a window that lighted the space over the aisle-vault; while a round arch over this niche, and a little pointed arch on the buttress adjacent westwards, carry a curious thickening of the masonry above. The arrangement of the windows here breaks the continuity of the first string-course, which, after crossing the main elevation, has to be stopped and resumed at a lower level in order to pass beneath the windows of the aisle. At the corner of the latter are more clustered buttresses, terminating below the parapet, and above them rises a plain gabled pinnacle (an addition, probably, of the fourteenth century), while another buttress, rising from the inclined coping of the aisle-wall, runs up the clearstorey.

The east side of the aisle has two more buttresses like those at the corner, and consists of two bays, each containing a window like that at the end. It is hard to say whether the moulded string or cornice below the parapet is original, but the gargoyle which juts from it and the parapet itself, with its cruciform piercings, are not earlier than the fourteenth century. The roofs of the aisles in both transepts and in the choir have been lowered, and it has been suggested that this was done at the time when the Minster was fortified against the Scots, in order to afford better standing-room for armed men,[42] and the various battlements on choir and transepts were probably erected for the same occasion. Here the round arches of the triforium have been built up, and the clearstorey harmonizes with the more elaborate scheme of the choir. The wall is divided into three bays by flat pilasters received in the cornice, and each bay contains a round arch, pierced and glazed, between two lower and narrower pointed arches, all resting on single detached shafts. Between the buttresses runs a corbel-table, supporting a battlemented parapet of Decorated character, in which the merlons are of great width in proportion to the embrasures—an early feature—and have the usual cruciform piercings, so splayed at the back as to leave no doubt that they were really intended for the use of archers. The three gargoyles below have been renewed, and none of the gargoyles on choir or transepts are earlier, perhaps, than the Decorated period.