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 aisle is often called the Markenfield Chapel, and doubtless contained the Markenfield family chantry, which seems to have become afterwards merged in another foundation.[87] The two bays were apparently once walled off from each other, the dividing wall having perhaps been removed to make way for this Markenfield tomb. At any rate, between the bays of the vaulting there is a plain cross-arch of remarkable thickness, whose eastern respond is cut off above the tomb, as are also the two adjacent vaulting-shafts, which have had heads carved upon their ends. The south wall is probably original, since (to mention one reason) part of the string-course upon it is worked on the same stone with the vaulting-shaft. The lower parts of the walls display traces of a design in red representing round arches interlaced. In the north wall there is a square aumbry, and in the south wall a large piscina, with trefoil head and projecting basin. If this piscina is original, it is a very fine specimen for so early a date. A huge eighteenth century monument to Sir Edward Blacket of Newby almost covers the southernmost window, but the remaining two contain glass of some merit, which in that facing east commemorates the recovery from fever of King Edward VII., then Prince of Wales. The vaulting springs from single cylindrical shafts, which rise from the ground and do not interrupt the string-course. Their bases have three-sided plinths, and their capitals are enriched with stiff foliage and are three-sided above.

The vaulting, which is apparently original, deserves especial notice. Its bays are square, and the groin ribs consist each of three round mouldings, of which the most prominent is ‘keeled’;[88] but what is most remarkable is that there are also ridge-ribs, which are not usually found before the thirteenth century, and it has been suggested[89] that this is the earliest instance of their employment. There are also wall-ribs, and these and the ridge-ribs are much thinner than the groin-ribs, and consist of a single roll only.

Watson, Ripon, Photo.]

VAULT OF THE NORTH TRANSEPT AISLE, TWELFTH CENTURY.

The South Transept is narrower than the other by a yard, its width being 49 feet to the aisle wall (which, it should be noticed, has not been rebuilt). Without the aisle the width is only 30 feet, but this is partly due to the Perpendicular alterations. The end and west side of this transept, which remain more or less as they were in Archbishop Roger’s day, resemble the corresponding walls of the other, yet with the following differences. The roof-shafts on the west side are thinner here than there, and are carried up to the required height in one piece, unbroken save by the string-courses.

In connection with the attachment of shafts of any considerable height to wall-surfaces in Archbishop Roger’s work, it will be observed that though the shafts (according to the general practice of masonry) are usually made in short joints built in at the back, yet (as here) their jointing sometimes does not harmonize with the coursing of the wall; again (as in the old nave and north transept) the shafts of a cluster are sometimes not worked all on the same stones.

To return to the differences of this transept from the other, the roof-shafts over the inserted Perpendicular arch (which here obtrudes into the triforium) descend no lower than the sill of the clearstorey. Again, the thickening of the walls at the top is supported in the south-west angle not by one shaft but by two, one of which stands on a projecting strip of masonry that runs up the angle to the triforium. The design of the eighteenth century monument against the south wall, to Mr. Weddell of Newby, is taken from that of the choragic monument of Lysicrates at Athens.

On the east side, which has been entirely remodelled in the Perpendicular period, the bay next to the tower displays from the ground to the triforium a plain surface broken only by a pointed doorway surmounted by three cinquefoiled niches with ogee crocketed hoods. The doorway retains its original doors with an ornamental iron scutcheon over the keyhole. In their great strength, and in their treatment generally, the two arches opening into the aisle resemble the Perpendicular arches of the central tower. The triforium stage is exceedingly poor, and shows traces of more or less modern disfigurement. Each bay contains a single arch which does not occupy the whole space, and which is surmounted by a hood-mould and divided into two sub-arches, but without cusps. Here again the arches were once pierced through to a gallery over the aisle, as the exterior of the wall plainly shows; and this seems to indicate either that the external roof had not been lowered when these Perpendicular repairs took place, or that possibly the two lower storeys of Archbishop Roger’s wall were left standing, and have been, not rebuilt, but cased. The appearance of the wall externally suggests that these arches may have once been round, and the unusual bulk of the two aisle-arches seems further to support the theory of a ‘casing.’ In the clearstorey the windows have hood-moulds, but otherwise are treated much as in the nave. The southernmost contains a fragment of old glass, bearing the words ‘Jhesu mercy.’ Along the sill of the passage may be seen the stumps of uprights which may perhaps have supported a rail. The roof-shafts are clustered and extremely thick, and appear the more awkward in that the wall and the shafts with it are set back at the base of the triforium. In this transept the ceiling is old, and among the heraldic devices carved upon it are those of the church itself, St. Wilfrid, the See of York, the Pigotts, the Nortons, and Fountains Abbey.