Ripon Palace and Minster Close (The Gatehouse Record)

In the civil parish of Ripon.
In the historic county of Yorkshire.
Modern Authority of North Yorkshire.
1974 county of North Yorkshire.
Medieval County of Liberty of Ripon.

OS Map Grid Reference: SE31467107
Latitude 54.13560° Longitude -1.52008°

Ripon Palace and Minster Close has been described as a certain Palace.

There are no visible remains.

This site is a scheduled monument protected by law.

Description

Medieval close of Ripon Minster. The close overlies the core of the Anglo-Saxon monastery founded by St Wilfrid in the mid 7th century. The boundary follows the medieval close wall, of which there are substantial remains. The area enclosed contains the Archbishop's Palace complex, house of Canons, the Bedern and the Cathedral. This probably represents the arrangement of the close from the 12th century onwards. (PastScape)

Leland described Ripon as 'a fair palace', while the parliamentary survey of 1647 identifies the hall, great chamber, and chapel amongst various rooms, and a gateway. It became a poor house and was finally swept away in 1830. (Emery)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Scheduled Monument Number 1003148, Legacy Scheduled Monument Number ny1282
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 1057182.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) MNY19802.

Books
- Thompson, M.W., 1998, Medieval bishops' houses in England and Wales (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing) p. 188
  Emery, Anthony, 1996, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales Vol. 1 Northern England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press) p. 301-3
  Niemeyer, N., 1911, 'Introductory Chapter' in Rait, R.S. (ed), English Episcopal Palaces (Province of York) (London; Constable & Co) p. 6-7 online copy
Periodical Articles
- 1940-3, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. 35 p. 280-1
  1934-6, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. 32 p. 52-9
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 556
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1907, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 1 p. 81 online copy
Other sources: Theses; 'grey' literature; in-house reports; unpublished works; etc.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.

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