In the towers the lowest of the four stages is relieved by a little arcade of six trefoiled arches, with detached shafts, fluted capitals, and dripstones not trefoiled and terminating in heads. Each of the three upper stages is occupied by three tall lancets, of which that in the centre, higher and broader than the others, is pierced and (except in the belfry) glazed. In their enrichment these arcades resemble the windows of the central compartment. The second stage is not quite so high here in the towers as it is there, and the level of the string-course above is consequently broken. The third stage, taller than the second, reaches to the springing of the gable. The fourth, taller than the third, rises somewhat above the gable cross, and the shafts of the lancets are twice banded, while above are two circular panels, which on the north tower are raised and contain quatrefoils, but on the south tower are sunk and contain trefoils. On the other faces of these towers the arches are not so richly moulded, and the shafts are single and also detached, except in the uppermost stage of the north tower, where they are engaged and filleted. As the second stage does not descend so low upon the western face as upon the other faces, the string-course below it, after passing round the corners of the facade, is stopped, and when it is resumed it passes above the sill of the arcade, being carried round the little plinths of the shafts. All the string-courses, it will be noticed, are enriched with the nailhead moulding. The buttresses rise to the parapets without diminishing in breadth or projection—an early feature, and three large rolls or beads are worked upon their edge. Those that flank the portal have each a large niche at the bottom, with engaged shafts, and the head and dripstone trefoiled. At the corners of the facade, where the staircases are, the buttresses are triple. The original corbel-table, surmounted by a row of dog-tooth ornament, remains at the top of the towers, but the battlements and pinnacles have been put up since the removal of the spires in 1664, and were renewed in 1797.

The bells, ten in number, are in the south tower. Of the mediaeval peal, which consisted of six bells, the largest, known as the Klank Knoll, was made in 1379 at York, and perhaps hung in the north tower; while some of the others seem to have been made in Ripon in 1391. They were all recast in 1761 by Lester & Pack of London, after which there were eight. Two of these (Nos. 4 and 7) were recast in 1866 by Warner of London, and two new bells (Nos. 1 and 2), by Shaw of Bradford, have been added since 1890. The ninth bell is rung every evening at nine for the curfew. The mediaeval clock, mentioned in 1379, has long vanished; another was put up in 1723; the present clock (by Thwaites of Clerkenwell) dates from 1808.

The whole front has been much restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, especially the doorways and the towers. The latter were badly cracked through settlement (due partly to the fact that in either tower one of the sides is older than the rest),[35] but, as Sir Gilbert himself declared, they are once more strong enough to bear spires, and it is to be hoped that the hint will some day be taken. The more the west front of Ripon is studied, the more it becomes apparent how much thought has been expended upon it. Yet as a work of art it is perplexing. To some it will appear beautiful as a design; to others its excellence of detail will be its only commendation, and they will complain that the tiers of windows are wider than the gable, that there is a disproportion between the little arcade in the lowest stage of the towers and the great lancets in the upper stages, that the height of the latter makes the towers appear top-heavy, that the whole facade lacks projection and depth of shade, and that there is too much glass. Some dissatisfaction was felt, as the Fabric Rolls indicate, in 1379, when masons were employed to divide each of the large windows into two lights with a quatrefoil above.[36] The mullions and quatrefoils remained till our own day, when they were removed by Sir Gilbert Scott, whose action the present state of expert opinion on restoration would severely condemn.

The Nave. North Side.—By being rebuilt with the addition of aisles, the nave became as wide as the west front. Its width is 87 feet internally and nearly 100 feet externally, and it is the widest nave in England after York, Winchester, Chichester, and St. Paul's. The date of the rebuilding is indicated by a Chapter minute of 1502, which alludes to the onus canonicis modo impositum super reaedificationem navis. The Fabric Rolls mention the purchase of stone in 1503, and the roofing of some "new work" in 1505, while a will of 1508 requires the testator's body to be buried in "the new work of the College Church." These are doubtless references to the south side, which is evidently the older and bears internally the arms of Archbishop Savage (1501-1507). Again, an indulgence of 1512, by Archbishop Bainbridge (1508-1514), alluding to the demolition of the old nave as then complete, suggests that the north wall had been left standing till then, and the laying of the foundation of the north aisle, which bears his arms, is mentioned in the Roll for 1512-13. It appears from the Rolls that the main roof was up by 1520-21. Lastly, Leland's allusion to "the body of the Chirch of late dayes made of a great Widnesse" shows that the main part of the work was finished at any rate by about 1538.[37]

The nave is divided—east of the towers—into six bays, of which the easternmost is narrower than the rest, to answer to a fragment of the old nave preserved within. The plinth is considerably higher than that of the west front.

On the north side, the six buttresses project 5 feet at the base and rise to the parapet in two stages, which are crowned by gables. These gables have their sides curved inwards and are adorned with crockets and finials, the latter being attached to the front of the gable, while grotesques project from the angles. The windows are of three lights, and are rather acutely jointed and deeply set for such late work, and their arches are well moulded, a broad hollow running up the sides. As is often the case in late work, there are no sub-arches in the tracery, and the mullions are carried up through the head. The easternmost of these windows is of two lights, and has a transom in the tracery, and the westernmost is shortened to allow of a doorway of four-centred form beneath. Below the sills runs a string-course, which rises to pass over the door. The parapet is battlemented, not for military purposes but for ornament, and at intervals are the beginnings of panelled pinnacles, set diagonally and partially embedded in the battlements. The clearstorey has no pilasters or buttresses, but where it joins the west tower a projecting strip of masonry may be seen half imbedded in the Early English work and half in the Perpendicular. This is, without doubt, the upper part of one of the buttresses of the old nave.

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.



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.

The Choir. North Side.—Here the three westernmost bays of the aisle and clearstorey respectively are Archbishop Roger's work. Two flat pilaster-buttresses rise out of the slope of the plinth and run up the aisle-wall, each terminating short of the parapet in two sets-off close together. The level of the window-sills was the same here as in the transept, but the string-course has been broken in the Decorated period by the insertion of three slender windows, each having two lights with a quatrefoil above. Above the windows comes the moulded string or cornice continued from the transept, and above this the pierced merlons of the Decorated battlement are again very broad in proportion to the embrasures. Instead of being built up, the exposed arches of the triforium have here been glazed. The clearstorey resembles that of the transept, but the corbel table is surmounted here by a slope, on which rest two large gargoyles (renewed), and instead of a Decorated battlement there is a plain coping.

The last three bays of the clearstorey and the last two of the aisle are Decorated work, probably of the end of the thirteenth century, and here the level of the plinth is again lowered to suit the slope of the ground. In the aisle the two bays are separated from the rest and from each other by buttresses having a projection of 8 feet. Either of these buttresses is crowned by a gable having a finial, and is surmounted by a tall square pinnacle to receive the thrust of a flying buttress that spans the aisle; and either pinnacle has its sides panelled and gabled, a head at each corner, and five finials. The two last aisle-windows are larger than those in the western bays, but have much the same tracery. They have, however, a thick shaft worked on the stones of the jamb, and a large keeled round on the edge of the arch, and there is no dripstone. Below them is a small string-course, which is carried round the east end. The string or cornice above them is made to match that on the western portion of the aisle, but in the battlement the merlons are of merely ordinary width. In the clearstorey the wall is considerably set back from the Transitional bays, and the three windows are very elaborate. Their arches are richly moulded and acutely pointed, the springing-line being rather low down. Each window is divided into four lights, comprised under two sub-arches, either of which contains a circle enclosing a trefoil, while above, in the head of the window, is a large circle with five trefoils radiating from its centre. The dripstones end in heads. A moulded string-course, with gargoyles, runs below the parapet, which is a continuation of the plain coping on the western bays.

From this point it will be best to return to the west front, and proceed along the south side of the Cathedral.

The Nave. South Side.—This side is architecturally superior to the other, and differs from it greatly in detail. The plinth, which is very massive, rises even higher above that of the west front here than it does there, and the buttresses project over 8 feet at the base and are of three stages, and the gables on these have their sides straight, their eaves everywhere continued to the wall, and their corners enriched with heads, but on the second stage only. In the two easternmost buttresses the lowest stage has heads also, and in the last buttress eastwards this stage, for some unexplained reason, is twice as broad as the others, and has an ogee gable. On all gables the crockets are large, and the finials, which here stand upon the apex, are huge and very boldly executed; while the rudimentary pinnacles are thicker here than on the north side and more detached from the parapet. The wall is thickened up to the windows, below which there is a set-off, and the windows themselves are so moulded as to seem set in heavy frames, and are much less acutely pointed than in the other aisle, their arches approaching the 'drop' form. The rather clumsy mullions are carried up through the head, but branch out to form arches over the side lights, and are reduced in thickness above the branching point; and in the head there is a transom, except in the narrow easternmost window. Though the aisles differ so much, the clearstorey is much the same on this side as on the other, and again one of Archbishop Roger's buttresses is visible, imbedded between the Perpendicular walling and the west tower. The height of his roof is indicated by the weathering on the central tower and by the west gable, and the sixteenth century roof was probably not lower, for the central tower shows high weatherings of the latter period also; but the pitch had been lowered before the last restoration, and Sir Gilbert Scott was unable to raise it to the full height. It is to be hoped that the raising may yet be accomplished, and that lead may be substituted for slate.

The South Transept, all but its eastern side, is mainly Archbishop Roger's work. The plinth is altogether lower not only than that of the nave, and even of the west front, but also than that of the other transept, and the architecture thus expresses the downward slope of the ground from north to south as well as from west to east. Here, as in the nave, the buttresses have a greater projection than on the north side of the church, as if the ground here were more liable to settle. As this transept bears a general resemblance to the other, it will be best to note only the points in which they differ. In the west wall the window in the second stage has no mullion, the innermost buttress is of the same type as its next neighbour, and the parapet is returned over all the buttresses, thus forming three 'turrets,' of which that nearest to the nave rests partially on a large corbel. The staircase at the south-west corner terminates at the top in a square turret with a pyramidal stone cap.

In the south elevation the doorway is very elaborate. The opening is of the form sometimes called the shouldered arch, a square lintel (which, curiously enough, is not one stone) resting on corbels; and the semicircular arch over this is of four orders, the uppermost of which projects considerably from the wall. On either side there are five shafts, the outermost order having two, which are placed on the front of the jamb and share one abacus. These two shafts are worked on the stones of the jamb—a mode of construction not very common in such early doorways. The details resemble those of the less elaborate doorway in the other transept, but some of the foliage on the capitals here is almost Early English. This doorway is approached by five steps, and was once covered by a Renaissance porch.



In the windows of the second stage the abacus of the capitals is continued as a string from window to window. The two flanking buttresses have been crowned at some later period with gables ending in finials, and the great gable is pierced with a Perpendicular window of three lights, which has three transoms in the head, the mullions carried up to the archivolt, and a dripstone ending in foliage. The sides of the gable here do not take an upward turn to meet the corners, and there are no flanking turrets. In the end of the aisle the blocked upper window is pointed, and has a little trefoiled niche above and to the left of it, and there is no thickening of the masonry above to necessitate carrying-arches. The buttresses at the corner reach to the top of the parapet and have no surmounting pinnacle. The small portion of the east side of the aisle which is not concealed by the Chapter-house and Lady-loft displays in the lower stage a somewhat inexplicable blind arch, carrying an inclined thickening of the masonry that has been afterwards built up to a level, and below the parapet a moulded cornice like that on the north side of the church. This cornice is continued within the Lady-loft, and reappears over the last bay of the choir-aisle.

The Chapter-House.—The south aisle of the choir is concealed by a wing of three storeys, of which the lowest, though exposed to view by the conditions of the site, is of the nature of a crypt, while the second comprises the Chapter-house and vestry, and the third, known as the Lady-loft, is an addition, probably of the fourteenth century. The first two storeys seem to have formed part of a church earlier than Archbishop Roger's,[43] and have been variously ascribed to Archbishops Thurstan (1114-1141)[44] and Thomas of Bayeux (1069-1100).[45] From the east wall of these two storeys an apse is thrown out, upon which rests a square projection from the Lady-loft, too short to be called a chancel. The two westernmost buttresses, up to the string above the crypt, are evidently additions by Archbishop Roger, while the third, which completely encases a three-sided apsidal projection at the corner of the vestry, is of much later date and will be examined presently. Adjoining it is a flat pilaster buttress, apparently original. The crypt has five unglazed windows along the south side, all round-headed and plainly splayed, and, where it joins the transept, there is a large rectangular squint which gives light to a staircase that leads up to the Chapter-house. A pointed doorway, made in later times, cuts into the fourth window from the west. In the second storey there are on this side only four windows, which are spaced without any regard to the position of those below. The two westernmost, which are circular and without tracery—a type of window that is somewhat rare—can hardly be later than the time of Archbishop Roger, and may be earlier: the next two are square and of much later date. Above the windows the eaves of the original roofs remain, supported on a corbel-table which is carried round the apsidal chamber at the corner and round the eastern apse. At the south side of the latter the builders have left a narrow recess which extends from the ground nearly to the top of the crypt.

The apse displays in the lower storey a round-headed unglazed window like those along the south wall, and in the upper storey a small round-headed light at the south side and a larger window in the middle, of the same size as that below, but not so deeply splayed, and with the head rudely trefoiled. On either side of these central windows, a shaft, made in short joints, runs up the apse from base to eaves. The string between the two storeys is carried round these shafts, and their circular bases overhang the plinth and rest on small blocks, while the capitals are square-topped, as in Archbishop Roger's work. From the roof of this apse and of the apsidal chamber at the corner, and from the eaves that project along the south wall, it would seem that the whole structure was roofed with stone at a steep inclination. Where its wall joins the transept the stone-work seems to be of the same date on both sides of the corner, so that there may have been an original buttress or wall extending southwards from this point.

The third storey is now the Cathedral library, but was originally the Lady-chapel, and was commonly called the Lady-loft. Such a position for a Lady-chapel—at the south side of the choir, and in an upper storey—is extremely unusual.[46] Authorities have differed widely as to its date. Some have assigned it to about 1482; but the Lady-loft is clearly mentioned in the Treasurers' Rolls in 1470, and its architecture, which is Decorated rather than Perpendicular, would be in favour of ascribing it to the middle of the previous century, were it not for a certain coarseness of execution which makes a suspension of judgment advisable.[47] To support this additional storey, the two western buttresses were carried up, diminishing both in projection and in width, to within a few feet of the upper string-course. The huge buttress at the corner was very possibly added later, to counteract a settlement which is evident to anyone so standing as to bring the shafts on the apse in line with the corner of the choir, and which was doubtless due to the weight of the Lady-loft. This buttress is of the same height as the others, but is broader, and has as many as seven stages, the fourth of which is crowned by a truncated hip roof and pierced with a slit to light the apsidal chamber within, from whose sloping top the upper stages spring. Traces of some external means of access to this apsidal chamber from below may be seen at the west side. Except one small lancet adjoining this buttress, the windows of the Lady-loft are square-headed, with mullions branching out into intersecting arches whose cusps spring from the soffit independently of the mouldings—an early feature; and the dripstones are square labels terminating in foliage, but with the ends not returned. Altogether these are more like the windows of a castle or manor-house than of a church. The four towards the south are of three lights, but the east window has five lights and is set higher in the wall, while its dripstone terminates at one end in a grotesque sitting figure. Various gargoyles project from the string-course, which rises to pass over the east window. The angles of the east end seem to rest upon the very edge of the cornice of the apse, and one wonders how the wall is supported along the chord of the curve. In reality, however, the apse is not so sharply curved internally as externally, and its walls are very thick, so that the square form could be imposed upon the round without much overlapping. The parapet shows the same wide merlons and cruciform piercings which characterize the other Decorated parapets of the church, and it may have been brought forward from the choir-aisle.

The last bay of the latter displays a window like those on the north side, but having foliage on the capitals of the shafts; and below the parapet runs the cornice continued from the transept, with a curious gargoyle upon it. Part of the base of Archbishop Roger's choir-aisle is visible imbedded between this wall and the apse.

Those parts of the church which were rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east corner of the tower can be best examined from the roof of the Lady-loft, which forms with the roofs of the aisles a level surface of considerable extent.

The East Side of the South Transept has three buttresses, crowned by pinnacles of which the two nearest to the tower are modern. The central buttress is much shallower than the others and has a different termination. The clearstorey displays three well-arched windows of three lights (the innermost window a little smaller than the others) with tracery not unlike that in the south aisle of the nave. The parapet is probably old Decorated work that has been used again, for it has the wide merlons and cruciform piercings characteristic of early battlements, and the Perpendicular pinnacles, it will be noticed, are not in the middle of the merlons. The manner in which the corner of the tower has been reconstructed is extremely interesting. Up the angle formed by choir and transept runs a sort of excrescence of masonry that blossoms out, so to speak, into an extraordinary complication of corbelling near the top, and is itself corbelled away at the bottom. In this excrescence, as elsewhere, old materials have been used again, and in the projecting mass, at the level of both triforium and clearstorey, are the springings of arches curving eastwards and southwards, which suggest that the adjoining walls had at first been intended to be on a more advanced plane, and that the arches of the triforium were to have been round in the transept (where, by the way, they are recessed) as they are in the choir. This angle contains the tower staircase, which is lighted by a little window in the upper corbelling and is reached from the clearstorey gallery of the transept. On this side of the church the parapet walk has to be carried round the corners of the tower on squinches.



The Central Tower. South and East Sides.—The south and east faces are each divided by a central pilaster running up to the top of the parapet, but otherwise the general scheme is not unlike that of the older sides, save that the windows here are set higher in the wall. Each window has two lights, wide and low, with much tracery above them, in which the mullion branches into two sub-arches; and there are dripstones ending in heads. The high weathering on these sides indicates that it was not in the Perpendicular period that the roofs of the church were so unfortunately lowered. At either end of each of these sides a buttress rises to the base of the parapet in three stages, the second of which has on the front a panel with an ogee crocketed hood and is crowned by a gable with a grotesque at each corner, while the third is narrower, but is also panelled. Various gargoyles project from the uppermost string, which on the east side is not broken by the central pilaster. As this string is higher than the corbel-table of the older sides, the tower presents a very curious appearance when seen from the south-west or north-east.[48] The battlements and pinnacles were perhaps first added when the south and east sides were rebuilt, but in places they have been much renewed. The stair-turret is surmounted by a hexagonal stone cap, which is pierced with a spire-light and crowned by a finial; and there is also a wooden polygonal bell-cote at the north-west corner of the tower. At the north-east angle the Perpendicular masonry turns the corner and enfolds the Transitional buttresses, where it stops with a jagged edge. This unfinished work has a considerable projection from the Transitional walling, the intention having been, perhaps, to correct externally the obliquity in the ground plan of Roger's tower;[49] it is also corbelled away at the bottom, probably to afford freer passage along the parapet walk and to avoid the necessity of a squinch. Originally the tower had perhaps a low pyramidal roof without a parapet, and then came several successive spires. The last of these, which fell in 1660, is said to have been 120 feet high from the top of the tower, and its disappearance has surely done more than anything else to spoil the external effect of the building.[50]

The South Side of the Choir.—Here the three westernmost bays are Perpendicular and the others Decorated. The westernmost window is smaller than the rest, and is of three lights, with the mullions carried up through the head. The next two windows imitate in curvature their Decorated neighbours, and are of four lights, with the central mullion branching out to form two sub-arches, between which a foliated circle, a feature not common in Perpendicular windows, is introduced into the head. In the fourth bay the Decorated arch has been filled with Perpendicular tracery, but the fifth and sixth windows remain in their original beauty as on the north side, save that in the easternmost the small circles have been mutilated and have lost their foliation. The two flying buttresses resemble those on the north side, but from the points where they meet the wall two pilasters run up into the parapet, which is flush with them and is crowned by a plain coping, while beneath it is a string, with gargoyles. Except at this end the wall, as in the clearstorey of the nave, is not buttressed, notwithstanding the size of the windows and their nearness together.



The East End.—The rebuilding of the east end of Archbishop Roger's choir was probably the object of an indulgence of 1284 by Archbishop Wickwaine, a brief of 1285 by Pope Celestine V., two indulgences issued in 1288 and 1300 respectively by Archbishops Romanus and Corbridge, and some credentials issued by the latter in 1302 for a collector of funds. And yet it is hard to fix the date of the work with any exactness. It had apparently not begun in 1286, for a mandate of Archbishop Romanus in that year begins Cancellus Rypon' ruinosus reparetur; but it may have been completed before the irruption of the Scots in 1318. Two indulgences of Archbishop Melton, one of which is dated 1328, do indeed allude to some "new work" as still unfinished, but this "new work" may have been the repairs necessitated by the violence of the Scots.[51] The east end of the Cathedral, then, recalls that period in our history when Edward I. was wrestling with the Scottish problem, and was also carrying into effect those lessons in representative government which he had learnt from Simon de Montfort.



The well-marked plinth of this east end has been already noticed. Either corner of the choir contains a staircase, and is strengthened by a pair of massive buttresses and crowned by an octagonal turret with a conical stone cap and a finial. These buttresses have a projection of 8 feet, rise to the top of the aisles, and are surmounted by gables with finials, and at the north corner the gables and the coping of the aisle are crocketed. At the south corner the upper part of the turret has been used as a cell. It is lighted by a small slit and has a wooden floor with a trap in it, from which a ladder once descended to the head of the staircase; and at the west side, in the parapet of the aisle, there is a garderobe seat. It would be interesting to know whether this turret was a prison, or a place of penance, or whether it was occupied by a watchman or sentinel, or, as is not improbable, by one of those recluses who were so often attached to religious communities in the middle ages. The central compartment is flanked by two huge buttresses, which have a projection of 10 feet at the bottom and rise to the base of the gable, or rather a little above it, in two stages only, the lower stage reaching a little above the coping of the aisles, and both stages are crowned by gables with finials.[52] The three compartments of the front are on the same plane. Each aisle shows at the end a window of the same pattern with these in the sides, and that in the south aisle has foliage on the capitals of its shafts and is surmounted by a little window of trefoil form which lights a staircase within, for staircases ascend over these windows in the thickness of the wall and run up the angles of the clearstorey.

The great window in the central compartment is one of the finest examples of Geometrical tracery, if not one of the largest windows, in England. It is over 50 feet high, is 25 feet wide, and has seven lights. Of these the three at either end are comprised under a sub-arch, in the head of which are three cinquefoiled circles, while the central light of the seven is surmounted by an arch, not so high as its neighbours, but impaling upon its acute point a huge circle which fills the head of the window and contains six trefoils radiating from its centre. The arch of this superb window is rather acutely pointed and richly moulded, and has two very slender shafts worked on the stones of either jamb, with foliage on their capitals. Just above the ground below this window there may be observed in the wall one of the many architectural puzzles in which the Cathedral abounds, a half-arch, rising toward the right and filled in with masonry, except at the right side, where is a narrow opening that runs in for a few feet.[53] A string-course continued from the sides of the aisles passes below the three windows and round the buttresses, which are further relieved at a little height above it by a set-off. The gable has been entirely rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is slightly set back, and displays a lofty window of four lights with geometrical tracery not unlike that in the great window below. On either side of this window there is panelling graduated to suit the triangular space, and the gable is crowned by an elaborate cross and flanked by two pinnacles which resemble those of the flying buttresses but are larger and have foliage at the corners instead of heads. The original Decorated gable was probably very much of this pattern. Its height was indicated by the weathering on the tower, and it seems to have had flanking pinnacles and graduated panelling. It had, however, been lowered in pitch and had been altered also by the insertion of a rather debased Perpendicular window.[54] Whatever may be thought, therefore, of Sir Gilbert Scott's action in rebuilding it, he has surely improved the general effect of the front, and it is well that one of the roofs, at any rate, should have been raised to the original pitch. What is most to be regretted, perhaps, is the removal of all traces, if any there were, of the chantry of the Holy Trinity supra summum altare, which was situated, as its name implies, in the roof, behind the old gable.

In Archbishop Roger's day the choir was probably as long as it is now, and Walbran (followed by Sir Gilbert Scott) believed that the aisles at that period were returned across the east end. If so, the clearstorey must have been a bay shorter than at present, with a pent roof projecting from below it on the east side to cover the returned portion of the aisle. The rebuilding of the east end in the Decorated period was the first operation in which limestone was employed, but much of the old gritstone has been used again.



FOOTNOTES:

[33] The name Ripon comes probably from the Latin ripa, "a river's bank." Bede uses a form "Inrhypum," which arose perhaps out of in ripis. The derivation Uri pons has been generally abandoned.

[34] The reason of the peculiarity here is the unusual width of the nave. (See below, p. 44.)

[35] This will be explained in Chapter III.

[36] See illustration, p. 17.

[37] This was pointed out by Walbran.

[38] The Transitional or Transition-Norman work at Ripon probably was not all erected during Roger's lifetime, but all of it will, in these pages, be associated with his name.

[39] Upon a modern Chapter seal there is what is possibly meant for a representation of Roger's church, with western towers, three spires, and no aisles. The seal is a reproduction of another of the time of James I., which may have been reproduced from a third of earlier date.

[40] For the origin and meaning of this knotwork, so often found in these islands on ancient crosses, and for its value as an illustration of the possible connection of Saxon architecture with the Comacine Guild of Italy, see The Cathedral Builders, by Leader Scott, pp. 82-99, and p. 145.

[41] This was the case with all the windows of both transepts—in the lower tier at any rate—until the last restoration. The reason why Sir Gilbert Scott has left or renewed the mullions in some of the windows is probably that he did not wish to disturb the memorial glass.

[42] The suggestion was made by Mr. Francis Bond.

[43] I.e., they were probably a Southern Chapel of the choir (vid. inf., Ch. III.). It is doubtful whether this earlier choir itself can have had a crypt.

[44] By Sir Gilbert Scott.

[45] By Walbran.

[46] Lady-chapels are usually found at the extreme east end of the choir, unless that position was wanted for the resting-place of a local saint.

[47] Walbran favoured 1482; Sir Gilbert Scott the middle of the fourteenth century.

[48] See the illustration, p. 2.

[49] The Builder, February 4th, 1893.

[50] This last spire must have been erected after all intention of rebuilding the north and west sides of the tower had been given up, and therefore (perhaps) after the dissolution. The three spires are shown upon the seventeenth century communion plate and in several old prints (see the illustration, p. 32). They were wooden and covered with lead, and are represented as octagonal. The two at the west end are shown without parapets at the base, and all three are without those sloping spurs which so often connect an octagonal spire with the corners of the tower.

[51] Dean Waddilove, in his monograph on the Cathedral, mentions that the date 1330 is to be found upon the choir, but he does not say where. Walbran believed the work to have been executed between 1280 and 1297, and is followed by Sir Gilbert Scott.

[52] The buttresses of this east wall were formerly connected at the bottom by a debased battlemented wall, and the space within was used for sheds, the grooves for whose pent roofs can be seen on the sides of the buttresses.

[53] The arch springs from the buttress (as an excavation in 1900 showed), and may perhaps be a relieving-arch, to take the weight off a weak place in the foundations. Yet it was not intended, apparently, to be filled up. The stones forming the right edge of the hole are coigns, and have mason-marks on their sides. At the back of the hole the masonry appears to be of some antiquity: may it be part of the foundation of the east end of Archbishop Roger's choir?

[54] There are several prints of the Cathedral, as it was before restoration, in the Ripon Museum.





CHAPTER III.

THE INTERIOR.

The Nave.—On entering through the west doors a perspective is disclosed of 133 feet to the end of the Nave, 170 feet to the Rood Screen, and 270 feet to the end of the Choir. The Early English builders have preserved two bays of Archbishop Roger's nave and have incorporated them into the west towers,[55] and the two great tower-arches which they have cut through the Transitional walling are very fine specimens of the Early English style. Each of the half-pillars that support them is a cluster of five large engaged shafts separated by very deep hollows, and upon every shaft there is a large fillet, which is carried up into the capital and down over the base. The base consists of two round mouldings separated by a hollow and fillets, and overhangs the plinth so much as to suggest that the floor just here has been lowered. The capitals and the arches themselves (which are of three orders) are moulded with rounds and hollows very strongly marked, and the hood of the southern arch terminates eastwards in a bunch of foliage.

The interior of the towers is more richly treated than is usual. Over the tower-arch is a small arcade of four members with clustered shafts, and with a string below, while the other three walls are plain up to the windows, each of which is flanked, as on the exterior, by two blind lancets. The arcading thus formed has clustered and banded shafts (not detached), behind which ran a passage, now blocked, and below the sill, and a little distance apart, are two strings, to the lower of which the sills of all the windows save two descend in steps. The windows are not splayed, and those which now look into the aisles are unglazed, and their flanking lancets are of unequal width. All the arches are much moulded and ornamented with the dog-tooth, and the central shaft of each cluster has a fillet. In each corner a detached shaft springs from a round corbel above the lowest string and rises to the impost of the arches, being banded twice on the way; and from its capital another shaft runs up to the ceiling. The doors to the spiral staircases open into little square lobbies which have vaults with groin-ribs springing from corbels.[56] In the north tower is a modern stained window of some merit.

The two bays of Archbishop Roger's work incorporated in the towers, taken together with another Transitional bay at the east end, make it possible to imagine the whole interior of what must have been the most remarkable nave in England. It was unusually broad. From the ground to the first string (about 16 feet) there was plain wall. Above this was a triforium (if it can be so called[57]) of the unusual height of about 28 feet, and there were thus no windows except in the clearstorey, and there only in alternate bays. According to Sir Gilbert Scott the triforium and clearstorey were probably continued across the west wall. The bays were alternately broad and narrow, and there is room for five of each sort. The westernmost bay shows in the triforium stage a round arch comprising four pointed arches. Of these the two in the middle are raised above the others on shafts of two stages, in the upper of which the capital is circular and its moulding is continued along the tympanum to the apices of the two lower arches. The tympanum is relieved by a sunk quatrefoil in a serrated circle, and so is the space under either of the two central sub-arches. The passage in this bay has been built up, and the bay itself shortened, probably when the tower arches were made.



In the adjoining narrow bay, the comprising arch is pointed, there are only two sub-arches, and there are no quatrefoils, except in the tympanum on the north side. Doors have also been inserted in this bay to communicate with the passages behind the arcades in the towers.

The shafts throughout are single, and (in the sub-arches) detached, and the details generally are the same as in all Archbishop Roger's work. It is worthy of remark that the tympanum over the sub-arches is flush with the lower part of the wall, and that the comprising arches, with all the walling above them, are a plane in advance. The more natural plan would have been to make the comprising arch flush with the wall below, and to have set back the sub-arches and tympanum. In consequence of Archbishop Roger's arrangement the shafts of the comprising arch stand, not upon the sill of the triforium, but upon corbels, each of which carries two of them and also a roof-shaft[58] which forms with them a cluster.

The clearstorey shows in the broad bay a stilted round arch, pierced, between two small blind lancets, and in the narrow bay three small blind lancets. These arches are not recessed or moulded, and are without hoods, as usual. Their piers, behind which is a passage, are square, and the impost moulding is continued as a string.

The roof-shafts have a curious break in them at the impost-level of the triforium, where a face is carved upon them with a band above it. They are banded also by the impost-moulding of either storey, and by the upper string-course, and end in square-topped capitals a little short of the present roof. Throughout Archbishop Roger's church the roof was probably flat, or slightly coved as at Peterborough. The corbels from which the roof-shafts spring are moulded and finished off with scrolls, and are placed at the level of the string-course, which is undercut; but on either side of the tower-arches the shafts have been shortened to a point above the string, which has been made continuous beneath them, and instead of corbels they have grotesque heads carved upon their ends. Beyond the westernmost roof-shaft there is a further shaft, which at first sight seems to have been the beginning of another bay, but the round moulding which rises from it runs up vertically instead of curving over to form an arch.

The western wall is far more impressive from within the church than from without, and shows the Early English style at its best. The three doorways have stilted segmental arches moulded with rounds, and their hood-moulds are continuous. Their shafts are single and engaged, and in the jambs are holes for the great bars which no doubt held the doors against the Scots in 1318. But if the doorways are plainer, the great lancets above are much richer, on this side than on the other. Their arches have more mouldings, their hood-moulds as well as the string-courses are enriched with the nailhead, the dog-tooth is used more profusely, and the piers are clusters of seven engaged shafts instead of five, banded at half their height and having behind them in both tiers passages which formerly communicated with the towers. The glass, by Burlison and Grylls, is worthy of its framing. It was put up to the memory of the late Bishop in 1886. In the lower tier "the earthly type" is represented by the Parable of the Ten Virgins. In the upper tier, in which the various designs represent "the Heavenly type," the Bride is the Church, and Our Lord is seen enthroned and surrounded by choirs of angels.

The yellow gritstone of the older work is contrasted curiously with the white limestone of the Perpendicular nave, and at the junction the later builders have left a jagged edge. Among very late Gothic buildings there are few indeed which are of so good a quality as this nave of Ripon, which, like the late church towers of Somerset, shows that mediaeval art took long to die out in regions remote from London. It is, indeed, the architecture of the days of Agincourt rather than of the eve of the English Renaissance. The pillars are characteristic of the Perpendicular style, their section being a square with a semi-circle projecting from each side, and the corners hollowed. Their bases have complex plinths of considerable height and are polygonal, but follow roughly the form of the pillar, and the mouldings, as usual in this style, overhang the plinth. The capitals, with small mouldings and many angles, are of somewhat the same form as the bases. On the westernmost complete pillar of the north arcade are two shields, charged respectively with the arms of Ripon (a horn) and of Pigott of Clotherholme. The arches, instead of being of that depressed form which is so common in late work, are very beautifully proportioned, and their mouldings are bold, numerous and well-cut. There is no triforium; but a passage, at a slightly lower level than in Archbishop Roger's bays, runs below the great clearstorey windows, which were once, no doubt, gorgeous with stained glass. Their arches are moulded, but the splay is left plain. The roof-shafts, which are in clusters of three and have fillets upon them, spring from semi-octagonal corbels, and where each cluster passes the string-course there is an angel holding a shield. A sign of decadence may be found, perhaps, in the way in which the hood-moulds of the windows intersect with these shafts. Though the two sides of the nave are not quite of the same date, they are almost alike, but for some slight differences in the capitals, the arch-mouldings, and the hollows on the pillars; the builders feeling doubtless that any marked variation would mar the general perspective—a consideration which, of course, could not bind them in designing the north aisle. The original Perpendicular roof may have resembled that which now covers the transepts. About 1829 Blore put up an almost flat ceiling of deal. The present oaken vault, by Sir Gilbert Scott, was copied from that of the transepts of York Minster, and is adapted to the old roof-shafts, between which have been added angel corbels of wood. As the ribs intersect near their springing, they weave a network over the whole vault, and the carved bosses at the intersections amount to 107. A passing notice is merited by the pulpit, which is Jacobean.



East of the five Perpendicular bays remains the second fragment of the old nave, namely, a portion of a broad bay, partly encased by the later masonry, and one complete narrow bay. In the latter the tympanum on both sides is relieved by a quatrefoil, which here is pierced and not enclosed in a circle, and the last shaft eastwards (one of those of the comprising arch) runs to the ground. Affixed to the north wall is an eighteenth century monument to Hugh Ripley, last Wakeman and first Mayor of Ripon (d. 1637). The original monument was destroyed during the Civil War, but the altar-like erection below the present structure was probably part of it. The roof-shaft west of this bay, for some unknown reason, ends considerably short of the roof in a kind of corbel with rude foliage upon it. In the south wall is a triangular piscina, which, if it is of Roger's date, is among the oldest piscinae in the country.



The Saxon Crypt, sometimes called St. Wilfrid's Needle.—From a trap-door in the pavement below the piscina a flight of twelve steps winds down into a flat-roofed and descending passage, 2-1/2 feet wide and slightly over 6 feet high, which, running a few feet northwards and bending at right angles round the south-west tower pier, extends eastward for about 10 yards, with a descent of one step near the end, and terminates in a blank wall. There is a square-headed niche at the turn and a round-headed niche at the end, both meant, doubtless, to hold lights. Three feet from the end a round-headed doorway, 2 feet wide and over 6 feet high, opens northwards, with a descent of two more steps, into a barrel-vaulted chamber, 11 feet 5 inches long from east to west, 7 feet 7 inches wide, and 9 feet 10 inches high. In the north wall of this chamber, and approached by three rude steps, is the celebrated St. Wilfrid's Needle, a round-headed aperture pierced through into a passage that runs behind. This aperture was connected with one of those superstitions that so often flourished before the Reformation in notable centres of religion, and ability to pass through it or 'thread the needle' was regarded as a test of female chastity; but it was, of course, in the later middle ages that this superstition arose, and the 'needle' (or rather needle's eye) is evidently only one of the original niches with the back knocked out. Of these niches (which again were doubtless for lights) there are four in the chamber besides the 'needle,'—one in each wall,—and, like the niche, at the end of the passage of entrance, they all have semicircular heads each cut in a single stone. That in the west wall has a hole or cup at the bottom, probably to hold oil in which a wick might float, while the others (except the 'needle') have a sort of funnel at the top, doubtless to catch the soot from lamps. In the east wall there is also a round-headed recess of larger size, the meaning of which will be discussed later. An excavation made in 1900 has lowered the earthen floor and revealed a set-off running round the chamber,[59] and upon the ground at the east end are traces of a later mediaeval altar, namely, a long stone parallel with the east wall and having behind it a small rectangular enclosure bounded by other wrought stones. Some of the latter were only laid bare at the above-mentioned excavation, when, moreover, the enclosure was found to be a pit containing bones, some of which had belonged to a man, others to an ox, others to a bird. These were probably regarded as relics, and may have been buried here at the Reformation for safety,[60] but it is possible that they were placed here at an earlier period, and that this is an instance of a relic-pit. Two other deposits have been found in the crypt in modern times, one behind the niche in the south wall of this chamber, the other behind the niche at the end of the passage of entrance. Most of the bones in these deposits were human, but one had belonged to an ox, another to a bird, another to a sheep, while others could not be identified. These bones again were probably 'relics,' and had almost certainly been built up behind the niches at the Reformation[61] for concealment. From the west end of the chamber another doorway similar to the last opens, with an ascent of one step, into a second chamber, 12 feet long from north to south, 4 feet wide, 9 feet high, and roofed with a semi-vault rising eastwards, in which there has been a square opening, probably for ventilation. At the north end a flight of four steps, lighted doubtless from the square niche in the west wall, ascends eastwards to the passage behind the 'needle.' Of these steps the lowest occupies the whole width of the chamber, while the second, on being cleaned at the time of the excavation above-mentioned, was found to have its upper and western surfaces sunk in the middle and traversed at one end by two parallel raised bands, and to show traces of that yellow enamel-like substance with which, indeed, the whole crypt seems to have been originally overlaid. In roof, width and height the passage at the top of these steps resembles that by which the crypt was approached, but it is spanned at the entrance by a round arch, and gradually ascends, terminating in a staircase now blocked at the fourth step (or perhaps the fifth, since one seems to have been removed at the bottom), while in the roof may be traced the shape of the long opening (rounded at the western end) through which these stairs once led up into the church. From the point at which they are blocked the distance to the arch that spans the passage is about 18 feet. It will be noticed that the floor of this passage is level with the 'needle,' which on this side, moreover, has been broken through so as to open out like a funnel.



There is little doubt that this crypt is the work of Wilfrid. It strongly resembles another at Hexham in Northumberland, which is almost certainly his since it agrees with a description given by his contemporary Eddius, and (more fully) by Richard, Prior of Hexham in the twelfth century. As, therefore, Wilfrid is known to have built a church in either of these places, and as the crypts remaining resemble each other, and as that at Hexham is almost certainly his, it is natural to conclude that this at Ripon is his also.[62] And the subject has had fresh light thrown upon it as archaeology has progressed. It is thought that the Romanizing party which prevailed at the Synod of Whitby affected for its churches the Italian type,[63] one of the characteristics of which was the Confessio, an underground chamber for relics[64] situated under the high altar, and surrounded, except toward the church, by a passage reached by steps from the body of the building, whence, moreover, there were generally steps leading up to the floor of the presbytery, and sometimes an incline stretching down to a window that looked into the chamber below. Now the present entrance to this crypt at Ripon is not original. To mention some of the evidences of this, there are in the roof of the passage several tombstones (one at the entrance and two beyond the bend) bearing incised crosses of the thirteenth century, and 15 feet west of the doorway into the central chamber there are signs that a cross-wall has been cut through. The only part of the work, then, which is original is that which extends eastwards of this point, and in Saxon times there was probably only one entrance to the crypt, namely by the north passage; indeed, it seems likely that the formation of an approach from the nave was contemporaneous with the blocking of that passage, and that both alterations were due to the incompatibility of the original disposition of the crypt with the subsequent arrangements of the church above. Now if that original disposition has been indicated correctly, the crypt presented all the more important characteristics of a confessio. There is the central chamber with a window looking into it (for this is the probable explanation of the arched recess in the east wall),[65] and there is the surrounding passage, which, however, is interrupted at the south-west corner of the crypt in such a way that it is necessary to pass through the chamber itself.[66] An excavation made in 1891[67] failed to reveal any traces of a staircase at the east end of the south passage, but as there are many instances in Italy of a confessio without a second stair, this failure is of little importance. If, then, this crypt may be assumed to be a confessio, there follows a very interesting consequence. The fact that the surrounding passage was entered from the east, that it runs round the west and not the east end of the central chamber, and that the blocked window (if such it be) is in the east wall of the latter, indicates that the nave lay to the east,[68] in other words, that the presbytery was at the west end of the church. Such a position for the high altar is ultra-Roman, was already being discontinued in Wilfrid's day, and had probably never been seen in the north, unless here and at Hexham; all of which considerations, in the light of the known bias and character of Wilfrid, are in favour of the theory above propounded.[69] It is impossible to say with certainty whether Wilfrid's presbytery was apsidal or square; and whether his church had aisles or not.[70]



There remains the question whether this crypt was or was not under the church of the monastery. In Leland's description of Ripon,[71] "the Old Abbay of Ripon" is certainly represented as having stood on the site which in Leland's time was occupied by the Lady-kirk, adjacent, that is, to the west side of the street now called St. Mary-gate;[72] and it has been argued with great ability[73] (on the supposition that "the Old Abbay" means the Saxon Monastery) that this crypt, though almost certainly Wilfrid's, was under a second church outside the monastery wall.[74] It is, however, still possible to suppose that the site in St. Mary-gate may have been that of the domestic buildings only, and that the monastery church stood over this crypt; or that "the Old Abbay" means the Scottish Monastery, the site of which was also probably not far from St. Mary-gate and may have been confused by Leland with that afterwards occupied by the Lady-kirk. Nor in any case, perhaps, are the mere statements of Leland a sufficient foundation for the argument that has been constructed upon them. Indeed, an elaborate confessio like this would hardly have been made for any church other than that of the monastery.

And if, after all, Wilfrid's monastery church stood above this crypt, there arises a very interesting probability in connection with that part of the south passage which extends 15 feet westward from the doorway opening into the central chamber, namely that it was the original burial-place of Wilfrid himself, whom Bede declares to have been laid juxta altare ad austrum.[75]

The position of the crypt suggests the history of the ground plan of the Cathedral. After the destruction of Wilfrid's Church, the site of his nave became that of the choir, and a nave was added westwards. Thus it came about that the crypt is now in the centre of the building. The central line or axis of the church in all stages of its history has probably always passed over this crypt.

The Aisles of the Nave.—As no aisles were contemplated when the west towers were built, the east side of the latter shows, of course, the same external decoration as the other sides. At the back of the surviving portions of the old nave there may be seen at the western end of either aisle one of Archbishop Roger's buttresses, and at the eastern end a roughened surface where another buttress has been removed. The two buttresses that remain have a large set-off near the bottom, and they do not diminish as they ascend; while from their upper portions, which are visible outside the church, it would seem that they rose to the very top of the walls. At a little over 16 feet from the ground there remains upon them a portion of an external string-course, which is not on a level with any of those on the exterior of the transepts. Either aisle opens into the transept with a massive arch resembling those of the north main arcade, and has along the foot of its wall a bench table, from which rise the vaulting-shafts. But though preparation had been made for stone vaulting, the roofs were of wood until the last restoration, when Sir Gilbert Scott put up the present stone groining. The effect is good, but would have been better had there been ridge-ribs and bosses.



The South Aisle contains the font, which was probably among the latest additions to the church before the dissolution, and formerly stood at the west end of the nave. This font is raised upon two circular steps, and is octagonal and of blue marble, with the various surfaces of base, stem, and bowl slightly hollowed. The sides of the bowl and also of the base bear shields and lozenges alternately, and upon the base the lozenges are richly carved. In a corner hard by stands another and much older font—probably that of Archbishop Roger's church. It is a circular basin, adorned with an arcade of trefoil arches.[76]



Against the wall a little further eastwards is an altar-tomb of great interest. The marble slab at the top has at one end a bas-relief representing a grove, and in it a lion walking away from a man, who kneels in an attitude of supplication with his back to the lion, while between the two figures is a bird flying toward the man. Tradition says that this is the tomb of an Irish prince who brought back from Palestine a lion that had there become attached to him, but a story of this kind was popular in mediaeval romances,[77] and the tradition, though of some age, is not, perhaps, very probable. It has been well suggested that the sculpture represents deliverance from a lion in answer to prayer; but as it is possibly only part of a larger composition, its full meaning must still be doubtful.[78] The work is rather Flemish in character, and may be assigned to the fourteenth century, with which date the costume of the man agrees. Thus the slab is considerably older than the wall to which it is now affixed, and it is doubtless older than the lower part of the tomb itself, which may be of the same date as the aisle. There is a black-letter inscription upon the front of the structure, but it is unfortunately quite illegible. An entry in the Chapter Acts[79] indicates that this tomb was used as a money-table in business transactions between the mediaeval townsmen.

The windows have their sides moulded, but somewhat clumsily. That above the font contains the only mediaeval glass in the Cathedral, a collection of fragments chiefly of the fourteenth century. Most of these were originally in the great window of the choir, where, being in the upper tracery, they had escaped the violence of Sir Thomas Mauleverer's troopers. Among the figures in the medallions are St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. Andrew, and there is a fine shield of the arms of England, with a border or mantling of France, and surmounted by a label of three points azure.[80] The quality of the glass is exceedingly good, and the window, when the sun shines through it, resembles a screen of gems, and puts its neighbours to shame. The fourth window from the west, however, by Clayton & Bell, is of considerable merit. The vaulting-shafts are in clusters of three, and have overhanging bell-shaped bases with polygonal plinths, while upon the capitals are angels bearing shields, one angel to each cluster. The last two shields eastwards are charged respectively with the arms of Archbishop Savage (1501-1507), and with the three stars of St. Wilfrid. Where these shafts break the string-course under the windows they are encircled by a thin band. Upon the eastern fragment of the old nave there remains in this aisle another portion of Archbishop Roger's external string-course, and also (near the last capital of the arcade) some trace of a band of ornament.

The western end of the North Aisle is the Consistory Court, and has been used as an ecclesiastical court since 1722, when Ripon was still in the diocese of York. Over the Chancellor's seat is a modern canopy of stained deal, which formerly surmounted the throne in the choir. The stone base of the railings, with its many projecting angles and its band of delicate quatrefoils, is thought to have formed part of the shrine of St. Wilfrid, and, having been found in fragments, was placed here by Sir Gilbert Scott. In this aisle the sides of the windows are partially panelled. The glass is of little interest, save that in the third window from the west, by Burlison & Grylls, and a few seventeenth century fragments. The vaulting-shafts here are single, and are half-octagons with their sides slightly hollowed, and they again break the string-course, which rises to pass over the doorway. Of the shields on their angel capitals the three easternmost are charged respectively with the arms of Fountains Abbey[81] (three horse-shoes), with those of Cardinal Archbishop Bainbridge (1508-1514) (supported by two angels), and with the stars of St. Wilfrid. The arch opening into the transept is not so high as in the other aisle, and upon the space above it are portions of a once external string-course and buttress.

The Central Tower.—It is from the interior of the church that the extent of the repairs necessitated by the partial fall of the tower can best be realized, and it is here that the documentary evidence for their dates may best be summed up. The catastrophe itself is described in an indulgence of 1450 by Archbishop Kemp, but the repairs had not advanced much by 1459, for in that year a testator bequeaths money to this object, "cum fuerit in operando." It would seem, however, from an indulgence of Archbishop George Neville that the tower had been partially repaired by 1465. After a bequest in 1466 (the last of a series beginning in 1454), it seems to be next mentioned in the Fabric Roll for 1541-2, and the Chapter Acts speak of the work that remained to be done as late as 1545. The order, therefore, of the larger operations in the Perpendicular period was probably as follows:—First the Canons remodelled the two ruinous sides of the tower and the east side of the south transept (where the work much resembles that in the tower), then they rebuilt the nave,[82] then the western bays on the south side of the choir (as the late character of the work itself would indicate),[83] and lastly they were about to remodel the two remaining sides of the tower when they were checked by the dissolution.



The planning of the Cathedral is remarkably irregular. Not only is the axis of the choir, as in so many churches, inclined (here toward the north) but the centre of the Rood Screen is south of the axis of the nave, and the north side of the tower is not parallel to the south side, the north-west angle being less than a right angle. This is the only angle which remains in its original condition, and here the responds of the two adjacent arches stand upon one circular plinth, their own bases being, however, rectangular, though following in the upper mouldings the forms of the shafts. The capitals of the latter are, as usual, square-topped. The respond of the western arch has a semicircular shaft upon the front, and a smaller shaft at the west side, where the pier is twice recessed. The arch itself springs from the level of the top of Archbishop Roger's triforium, is semicircular, and has more orders toward the west than toward the east, but the mouldings (chiefly rounds) are lacking in boldness, and the absence of a hood-mould (both in this arch and the other) is a disadvantage. The other respond is concealed by a huge Perpendicular casing, which, obtruding as it does into the arch, is a very conspicuous object in the view from the west doors. Upon the piers of this arch toward the nave are some curious brackets, which probably supported the original rood-beam.[84]

The northern arch springs from a higher level, and is less richly decorated than the other, and its form is almost segmental. It has more orders toward the south than toward the north, and again the mouldings are chiefly rounds. Its western respond has a shaft on the front, and at the south side another, which is banded at the springing-level of the western arch and carried up to that of the northern arch, where it ends in a three-sided capital, upon which stands another and very short shaft, complete with base and capital, that carries the rim of the arch and an angle of masonry that projects from the corner. The lower portion of this respond is cased by a rectangular addition (almost as old as the pier itself), which has upon the front a massive detached shaft with a circular capital, on which stands a quaint figure of King James I., brought from the screen of York Minster. To support an image of some kind may, perhaps, have always been the purpose of this pillar. It has been suggested that there is a similar projection concealed behind the casing of the south-western pier.

Over these two arches is a bold cornice, which possibly once supported a ceiling, and the blind storey above shows in each wall two pairs of plain lancets with the impost-moulding continued as a string, and with a passage behind. In the third storey, where again there is a passage, the two windows in each wall have a third arch (also round) between them, and alternating with these three arches are little lancets which have been blocked as far up as the imposts, their shafts having been first removed. A cornice supports the ceiling, and on the west side there are also some rather inexplicable corbels.

The builders of this tower were certainly misguided in employing round arches to support it, at a time when (as the choir shows) pointed arches of considerable size were in common use, and it would seem that the superior strength of the latter form was not yet fully realized. No stronger specimens of that form are to be found, perhaps, than the arches that support the two remaining sides. Their giant piers are clusters of engaged cylindrical shafts with rounded hollows between, and at each remodelled angle of the tower the two adjacent responds are treated as one whole, presenting seven shafts almost on the same plane. The bases, with their complex plinths and overhanging upper mouldings, are over five feet high, and the capitals are polygonal, with small and shallow mouldings, of which the lowest follows the form of the pier. Slightly stilted, richly moulded, and of many orders, these arches are so lofty as to leave no room for a blind storey above. Though the windows here are set higher in the wall, their rear-arches reach down nearly to the Transitional sill-level. Between the two windows in either wall a shaft springs from an angel corbel at the string-course below the sills, and runs up in a kind of groove, and these two shafts, with another which springs from the junction of the two great arches, end short of the present ceiling in semi-octagonal capitals, while on the east wall, and at a lower level, there are more corbels. Indeed, from the various corbels and shafts in this storey it would seem that the level of the ceiling had been altered, possibly more than once, and perhaps that it was destined to be altered again when the remodelling should be complete. The present ceiling, flat and painted with good effect, was put up by Sir Gilbert Scott.

The Transepts.—The length of either transept is 43 feet, and that of both together (including the crossing) is 134 feet, or about the same as the length of the nave. In the transepts and choir the relative proportion of the three storeys or stages to one another, which in the nave was so remarkable, becomes more ordinary, and the change in the level of the triforium passage—due to the heightening of the lowest stage to meet the exigencies of aisles—necessitates long staircases (now blocked) behind the western piers of the tower: and the same is the case (though in a less degree) with the clearstorey, which in this part of the church is loftier, instead of being shorter, than the triforium. In either transept a bench-table runs along the west wall, and the large lower windows are plainly splayed, but have their sills stepped. The glass in them is bad, except some seventeenth century pieces in the window over the north door. The roof, which is of oak, and Perpendicular, had been concealed in the time of Blore by sham Norman vaulting constructed of papier mache. Sir Gilbert Scott removed this abomination and exposed the old ceiling, which he repaired and partially renewed. It is almost flat, is raised on wooden figure-corbels, which prevent it from intersecting with the tower arches, and is adorned with judicious colour.

The North Transept, which is 34 feet wide, or 52 feet if the 'aisle' be included, is almost as its builders left it, and is among the most famous examples of the architecture of the age of Henry II. and Thomas a Becket, when the early English style was being developed from the Norman. As the details are the same here as in all Archbishop Roger's work, they need no further description. To take the west and north walls first, the Perpendicular arch opening into the aisle of the nave cuts into two blocked round arches, of which that on the right was a window, while that on the left is backed by the old nave wall; and in this first bay (which is narrower than the others in both this and the opposite wall) the triforium arches are blocked up, as well as the first lancet in the clearstorey, where there is moreover no window. Each bay shows in the triforium two pointed arches with a pierced quatrefoil between them, and in the clearstorey a stilted round arch, pierced and glazed, between two smaller arches of lancet form, which on the north wall are very curiously barred across at the impost level, the abaci of two shafts being formed by one slab.



The east wall is much more richly treated, and harmonizes in design with the choir. It might perhaps be more proper to describe the aisles of these transepts as a series of eastern chapels. Their floor is raised two steps above the body of the transept, from which they were evidently once railed off, and in either transept the two outer bays are walled off from that nearest to the tower. At any rate the arches here have the appearance of independent units rather than of a continuous arcade. Separated by roof-shafts of unusual bulk, their responds consist each of three engaged shafts with a fourth to carry the aisle-vault; and the bases, rectangular but with the upper mouldings following the pillar, are united with those of the roof-shafts, while the capitals as usual are square-topped. The actual arches are of two orders, each of which has the edge-roll, while under the soffit, which is flat, is another roll between two mouldings that are hook-shaped in section. The arch nearest to the tower has given way slightly and has been blocked up, apparently not very long after it was built, for in the blocking wall is an acutely-pointed and thrice-recessed doorway of decidedly early character, and the material throughout is gritstone. The wooden doors are probably Perpendicular work.

Adjoining this doorway is a Perpendicular stone pulpit, which has a base but no stem, and is ascended by means of three steps only. It has five sides, and is covered with rich panelling, but the top has apparently been taken off. This may not indeed be its original position,[85] yet it was a mediaeval custom to deliver the sermon just as the procession was about to enter the choir, and this pulpit is most conveniently placed for such a purpose. If this is not its original position, it may perhaps be identified with a nave pulpit mentioned in the Chapter Acts.

On this east side the triforium shows in each bay a semicircular arch comprising two pierced lancets and flanked by two blind lancets, with a quatrefoil pierced through the tympanum under the comprising arch, an arrangement that is the germ of tracery. Here there is no passage in the thickness of the wall, as there was an open gallery over the aisle until the external roof was lowered and the back of the arches blocked.

In the clearstorey the shafts of the round arch in each bay are doubled, each couple sharing a common plinth and capital, from which latter springs a tiny shaft that carries the edge-roll of the arch; and the lancet arches also, where they adjoin the solid piers between the bays, have a shaft in the jamb. On all three walls the shafts in this storey stand on a kind of kerb or parapet, which is interrupted in the middle of each bay, and the stilt of the round arch is treated almost like a classical entablature, and has a moulding or cornice above it, while the uppermost part of the wall is thickened, thereby necessitating over each bay a comprising arch, which on the north wall is round, but on the other walls follows the shape of the three sub-arches, and forms a kind of upper order to them.

The roof-shafts, which do not break the string-courses, spring from very various levels: on the east side from the ground, and on the north side from the unusually high level of the second string, while on the west side one cluster rises from the first string and the other from above the second string (having perhaps been shortened in the last case to make way for the Perpendicular arch beneath). On the east and west walls these shafts are of a thickness which, besides being out of proportion to the other parts of the architecture, is structurally unnecessary, for they do not directly support the roof at all, but end at the top of the triforium in triple capitals, of which the central member is square and the others round. Upon each of these capitals, stand three detached and much thinner shafts—namely, that which really carried the roof-beams, and those (adjacent to it) of the arches that carry the above-mentioned thickening of the wall. Thus is afforded a striking instance of the tendency, so often exemplified in Archbishop Roger's work, to use two shafts, one on the top of the other, instead of prolonging one—a tendency which marks the organic development of the style as still incomplete. On the north wall the three shafts in each cluster are carried up from their corbel to the top in one piece, unbroken save by a band at the impost level of the triforium and another at the third string, and they seem detached throughout their height both from the wall and from each other. At each corner of the transept the thickening of the wall over the clearstorey arcade is carried by a shaft which rises from the bench-table or the ground.

The roof is entirely modern, and the shields on its corbels bear the arms of the chief promoters of the last restoration.

Against the north wall is a fifteenth century altar-tomb, covered with inferior panelling and shields of arms, and surmounted by the figures of Sir Thomas and Lady (Eleanor) Markenfield; and adjoining this tomb (which formerly stood within the aisle) is the lid of a thirteenth century stone coffin on the floor. In the aisle stands another altar-tomb, which has the sides panelled and adorned with shields of arms and bears the figure of an earlier Sir Thomas Markenfield, clad in armour of the period between Poitiers and Agincourt, and wearing a very curious collar of park palings with a stag couchant in front, possibly (as has been suggested) a badge of adherence to the party of Lancaster. The figure of Lady Markenfield has, unfortunately, been destroyed.[86]

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.



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.

The aisle, the walls of which have not been rebuilt, and which has a chequered pavement of uncertain date, was for some centuries the burial-place of the owners of Studley Royal, and is often called the Mallory Chapel. A curious recess in the south wall is concealed by the monument of John Aislabie of Studley, Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the South Sea Bubble, and against the north wall is a monument to that Sir John Mallory of Studley who defended Skipton Castle for Charles I., and delivered Ripon from Sir Thomas Mauleverer. There is a square aumbry to the right of this monument, and in the next bay another, divided by a stone shelf and having modern doors with ornamental iron-work. The northern bay is almost wholly occupied by a stone staircase leading up to two doors, one of which opens on the left into a chamber now containing the bellows of the organ, while the other opens into the Lady-loft or Library. Over the latter door and over the Mallory monument will be observed traces of two original windows, which, before the erection of the Lady-loft, admitted doubtless whatever light was not blocked out by the old roof of the Chapter-house. On this wall hangs a royal escutcheon bearing the motto of James I. The vaulting is Perpendicular, but two of the original supports remain on the east side. The shaft in the south-east corner resembles those in the Markenfield Chapel, save that its capital has no foliage; but between the two bays, instead of two shafts flanking the respond of a thick cross-arch, there is a cluster of three detached shafts, banded at the string-course, and sharing a common capital with a semi-octagonal top. It would seem, therefore, that the two bays here were never walled off from one another.[90] At the north-east corner the vaulting springs from a Perpendicular corbel. Its moulded ribs are exceedingly ponderous, and one of them, not having room to descend upon the pillar, is finished off with a head. The present Library staircase was put up by Sir Gilbert Scott in place of an older flight attached to the north wall, and upon the latter may be seen (behind the stairs) traces of mural paintings in red and green, representing the Adoration of the Magi and other subjects. The archaic character of these paintings indicates the age of the wall, which, nevertheless (unlike the corresponding wall in the Markenfield Chapel), seems to have been an afterthought, since it differs from the other walls in the coursing of the stone and in the pattern of the string-course, and, moreover, at its northern end there is a 'straight joint,' visible in the choir-aisle.