Wilfrid’s Monastery at Ripon

As well as its main church dedicated to Saint Peter, Wilfrid’s monastery must have had buildings in which the monks could sleep, eat and carry out the monastic routines. No certain traces of any have yet been found, although some trenches and gullies glimpsed just north-east of the cathedral might be parts of them. The only other feature of Wilfrid’s monastery which we know of was a burial ground on Ailcy Hill, the prominent natural mound 200m due east of the Cathedral.

Other Anglo-Saxon remains found near the Cathedral include fragments of 8th or 9th century carved stone crosses. Uncovered west of St Marygate near foundations of a later chapel, the Ladykirk, they indicate a second monastic burial ground. Discoveries of skeletons on All Hallows Hill may suggest another Anglo-Saxon focus, and the tradition that the Celtic monastery occupied land at Priest Lane may also have a basis in ancient discoveries, now themselves forgotten.

In 1228 the boundary of church lands included Ailcy Hill, Priest Lane and All Hallows Hill. Taken together these finds and traditions hint that Wilfrid’s monastery occupied a large area to the north and east of the Cathedral, as well as land to the south and west where many of the later medieval and modern buildings of the Cathedral precinct are to be found.

Wilfrid’s monastery eventually came into the hands of successive Archbishops of York. As they managed to keep on good terms with the Viking kings of Northumbria in the 9th and 10th centuries, the monastery may have survived this dangerous era. Sculpture, burials and coins of this period have all been found near the Cathedral. In 948, as a warning to the Archbishop of York, the English king burned the church at Ripon. How much damage was done isn’t known but worship was soon resumed. Saint Cuthbert’s relics were brought here briefly in 995, and Domesday Book records a group of priests at Ripon in 1066. It is even possible that the core of Wilfrid’s church stood until the 1170s when Archbishop Roger of York began to build the church which still stands today.