Ripple Bishops Manor (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Ripple.
In the historic county of Worcestershire.
Modern Authority of Worcestershire.
1974 county of Hereford and Worcester.
Medieval County of Worcestershire.

OS Map Grid Reference: SO875376
Latitude 52.03727° Longitude -2.18321°

Ripple Bishops Manor has been described as a probable Palace.

There are no visible remains.

Description

In Thompson's list as a residential Manor of the Bishops of Worcester.

The manor of RIPPLE is said to have been granted in 680 by Oshere, King of the Hwiccas, to Frithowald, a monk of Wynfrid, ex-Bishop of Lichfield, but the charter is spurious. Frithowald evidently gave the estate to the Bishop of Worcester, and it belonged to the see in 1086. With Upton upon Severn it contained at that time 25 hides which paid geld. The woodland was included in the king's forest of Malvern, and the bishop only had pannage and wood for firing and repairs, instead of 'the honey and the hunting and all the profits, and 10s. over and above,' which had belonged to him before the Conquest.
The manor was valued at £36 3s. 4d. in 1291, at £57 11s. 10d. in 1535, the last sum including 100s. for the fee farm at Upton. Ripple belonged to the Bishops of Worcester until 1860, when it was transferred to the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who are the present lords of the manor.
There was a mill at Ripple in 1086 and a watermill and windmill in 1299. Only one mill is mentioned in 1291, and in 1302–3 a mill there was repaired. There does not seem to have been any mill at Ripple in 1535 or in 1648.
There appears to have been a park at Ripple Manor in 1339. The bishop had obtained a grant of free warren there in 1254. (VCH 1913)

Sources of information, references and further reading

County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) WSM12994 (Ripple Hall); WSM25272 (Medieval settlement area).

Books
- Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 187
  Dyer, C., 1980, Lords and Peasants in a Changing Society: The Estates of the Bishopric of Worcester, 680-1540 (Cambridge University Press)
  Page, Wm and Willis-Bund, J.W. (eds), 1913, VCH Worcestershire Vol. 3 p. 486-8 online transcription
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.
- Payne, Naomi, 2003, The medieval residences of the bishops of Bath and Wells, and Salisbury (PhD Thesis University of Bristol) Appendix B: List of Medieval Bishop's Palaces in England and Wales (available via EThOS)

Most of the sites or buildings recorded in this web site are NOT open to the public and permission to visit a site must always be sought from the landowner or tenant.
It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
Don't use metal detectors on historic sites without authorisation.

The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

Data >		County HER
Maps >	Streetmap	NLS maps	Where's the path	Old-Maps
Data/Maps >	Magic	V. O. B.	Geology	LiDAR	Open Domesday
Air Photos >	Bing Maps	Google Maps	Getmapping	ZoomEarth
Photos >	CastleFacts	Geograph	Flickr	Panoramio