Medieval character, great shops and friendly locals: Why you should visit Yorkshire’s forgotten city
Yorkshire’s smallest city is nigh-on perfect: medieval cathedral, large market place, wonky narrow streets, independent shops, an architectural mix, courteous traffic, and three rivers looping around its edges.
But, in 1904, Ripon over-reached when it decided to become a spa town, despite having no discernible natural resources – spa water had to be piped in from four miles away – and despite having a very successful spa town 12 miles away: Harrogate, with almost 90 natural mineral springs.
This unwise period came to an end in 1936 when the “spa baths” – admittedly, a splendid Edwardian building with stone parapet, porte-cochere, and fancy finials and window mouldings – were closed and turned into a swimming pool (recently closed). But at least the city can boast that it has the last traditional spa to be built in Britain.
Not that Ripon is in the habit of boasting. It goes about its business calmly and confidently, without shouting about what a fine city it is. Which is possibly why visitors flock to bigger, swankier and shoutier Harrogate with its celebrated tearooms, gardens, Turkish Baths and antique shops.
“We live in a community of niceness with these crazy pockets of glory around – the Cathedral, Fountains Abbey, three museums – which you don’t realise until a visitor mentions,” observed Rick Jones, who runs Valentino’s Italian restaurant-with-rooms. “Then we think, ‘Oh my God!’ and we look at [the city] afresh.”
Even by the famously welcoming standards of the north, Ripon is extraordinarily friendly. At the Anglo-Indian café, Realitea, owner Sarita had me sign up for Bollywood dancing lessons while I was quietly drinking my lapsang souchong. The day before, at Oliver’s Pantry, I apologised for ordering a “weirdly late” brunch, at 4.30pm. “I don’t think that’s weird at all,” smiled the waitress, “perfectly normal.”
The lateness was due to the city’s unexpectedly absorbing museums, despite their prosaic topics: The Workhouse; Prison and Police; and The Courthouse. At the Victorian Workhouse, life was regimented, segregated and bleak, with days an endless round of work, prayers, exercise and silent meals. At the Prison and Police Museum, I discovered how poor Anne East was transported to Australia in 1833 merely for stealing a pair of boots.
She would have been tried at what is now the Courthouse Museum, housed in the original Georgian courthouse. “It was a real eye-opener working here,” chuckled museum guide, Kathryn Beeken, a court usher and administrator until the courtroom closed in 1998. Pressed, she admitted most cases were “affray” – Saturday-night fights – “usually over a local girl”.
But this paints an uncharacteristic picture of the city. Actually, “city” is the wrong word; it’s really just a market town (population: 16,000) that happens to have a cathedral. Visit it just before Evensong and the pitch-perfect voices of the rehearsing choristers soar, swell and swirl around you.
It’s not an intimidating building (although with its seventh-century Anglo-Saxon crypt, it claims the oldest built section of any English cathedral); it’s warm and inviting. Stand in the nave and you can watch the comings-and-goings of shoppers and traffic through the wide-open West door.
“Ripon has the feel of a small town, lived in and used by the same people,” noted Sean Boyce, who, with his wife, Charlotte, runs Storehouse Kitchen – offering good but well-priced rustic food – where I had dinner. “It has a lot of independents that people use and want to support. There’s a sense of pride.”
My plans to explore these independents were delayed when the following morning’s sunny skies were too good to waste on shopping. I headed the four miles to Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal, an unlikely but stunning combination of majestically ruined medieval Cistercian abbey and filmic-quality water gardens.
The latter, designed in the 18th century by one-time Chancellor of the Exchequer, John Aislabie and his son, William, are dotted with follies, temples and contemplative statues exquisitely placed to frame or balance the geometrically perfect water features.
Back in Ripon, the market was abuzz, a no-nonsense affair with stalls selling matronly underwear, cheeses that would make a Frenchman weep and a bakery where you need to be early for the Yorkshire brack (a moist tea loaf).
The market place is an odd if agreeable mix of buildings: Georgian, half-timbered Tudor, and where Appleton’s butchers (established 1867) rubs shoulders with Argos. At nine o’clock every evening, the “Hornblower”, in fancy frock coat, toots a horn to indicate the “watch is set” and the citizens are safe, a tradition that dates back centuries.
Just around the corner in Westgate, the Little Ripon Bookshop is actually large and thriving. “We stock the books people of Ripon want,” explained co-owner Simon Edwards. I noted large sections on Crime, Cookery and Countryside. “We’re an antidote to online shopping,” he continued. “We do a lot of chatting.”
Across the road, Tartine’s Lounge is a tiny back-room restaurant – all white tiling, French dishes and Stan Getz on the playlist – and where you expect to find the ghosts of Serge Gainsborough and Jane Birkin in a corner. Chef-owners Vanora and Andrew Pearson are also master bakers who turn out proper viennoiserie. On North Street, I discovered The GreenHouse, which stocks recycled T-shirt plant pot hangers amongst its eco-friendly products. Nearby Realitea, run by Delhi-born Sarita McDermott offers an Indian spin on traditional afternoon tea.
Possibly the most attractive street is narrow, cobbled Kirkgate. Amongst the restaurants is the David Stead Gallery, showcasing his big, colourful, expressive landscapes. Why Ripon? “It’s right in the middle of everything,” Stead exclaimed, as though stating the obvious. “The Yorkshire Dales limestone landscape; the North York Moors, entirely different, and very beautiful. Whichever way you go from here, it’s astonishing.”
He added: “Turner painted outside my gallery on his 1797 tour of northern England, although he widened the street in the picture to get in the west front of the cathedral.” Who could blame him? As I left Ripon, the cathedral’s west facade was glowing in the late afternoon sun looking, for all the world, like a Tuscan duomo. Eat your heart out Harrogate.
Helen Pickles was a guest of Valentino’s, which offers five smart rooms with Italian-influenced breakfasts (from ￡120 b&b) and Storehouse Kitchen.
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