Ripon: South
RIPON
Dedication: St. Peter and St. Wilfrid. Formerly a Collegiate Church served by Augustinian Canons.
Special features: Nave; St. Wilfrid’s Needle; Rood-Screen; East Window; Choir-Stalls.
Ripon did not become a cathedral until 1836. From the Eighth Century until that date it was in the diocese of York, and the Archbishop of York, having his throne in the choir, gave the church great importance.
Ripon monastery was established in the Seventh Century. The monks came from Melrose Abbey on the Tweed and represented the Christianity that was introduced into the north by way of Ireland through St. Columba’s missionaries. Their great abbot was Wilfrid, who became Bishop of Northumbria. In 669 he began a stone monastery, on the site, in all probability, of the earlier one; and this was dedicated in 670 to St. Peter. Wilfrid died in 709 and was buried in his church at Ripon. Miracles took place at his tomb, which drew such large crowds that the monks tried to restrain them. In 948, when Eadred was quelling a rebellion in Northumbria, “was that famed minster burned at Ripon which St. Wilfrid built.”
The next date of interest is the rebuilding of the church by Roger de Pont l’Évêque (1154-1181), the great rival of Thomas à Becket. It was a cruciform edifice; its nave was without aisles. Of this, the two transepts, half of the central tower, and portions of the nave and choir remain. Ripon is, therefore, one of the most important examples extant of the transition from Norman to Early English.
Archbishop Walter de Gray (1216-1255) translated the relics of St. Wilfrid to a new shrine in 1224.