A LITTLE HISTORY OF LITTLETHORPE (Created from easily-accessible secondary sources)

John Edmonstone

In the beginning….

Some 255 million years ago what is now Ripon and all the surrounding area, including Littlethorpe, lay at the edge of a tropical sea and what is now Quarry Moor formed the beach. When the upper rocks at Quarry Moor were formed the sea was beginning to dry up and to become very salty. The crystals formed layers which eventually dissolved, the land above gave way and great holes were formed. As a result, gypsum underlies much of the Ripon area, including Littlethorpe.

The Ice Ages – and beyond

Around 16,000 BC the seas around northern Europe were some 400 feet lower than today and the average temperatures were four to five degrees lower. Britain at that time was not an island but simply the uninhabited north-west corner of Europe, and between it and the rest of the continent stretched frozen tundra, recently named “Doggerland” after the Dogger Bank in the North Sea. The end of the last major Ice Age came around 8,000 BC. As global temperatures rose melting ice sent freshwater rivers spinning through the frozen tundra, irrigating and fertilising it such that it developed into habitable, even hospitable terrain. As the sub-Arctic world warmed up and the ice receded mammoths, woolly rhinoroceri, deer, elks, horses, aurochs, wild pigs and wild boar headed northward and westward from the rest of Europe and the human hunter-gatherers followed.

Coming off the uplands of what is now continental Europe, they found themselves on a vast, low-lying plain. It was a land of hills and valleys, large swamps, marshes, lagoons and mudflats with major rivers dissecting a convoluted coastline. As the climate steadily improved, a richer natural vegetation started to cover the land, including oak, ash, elm, birch, willow, alder, hazel and pine. Stinging nettles grew amidst the grasses. Waterfowl, otters and beavers abounded in wetland areas and the seas, lakes and rivers teemed with fish, including trout. It was probably one of the richest hunting, fishing and fowling ground in Europe at the time.

This whole area of “Doggerland” was settled by tens of thousands of hunter-gatherer Mesolithic people. Such settlers headed further west into what is now the mainland of the British Isles and flint tools dating from this era have been found near Mankin Lane. The melt-water from the Wensleydale glacier came down Skelldale, scouring out the valley and left its’ debris of sand, gravel and silt on the plain below. Remnants survive in the mounds on which the cathedral is built and at Ailcey Hill in Ripon.

Around 6,200 BC, after millennia of incrementally rising seas, a massive release of meltwater from a giant glacial lake in North America called Lake Agassiz caused sea levels to jump by more than two feet. By slowing the circulation of warm water in the North Atlantic, this influx of frigid water triggered a sudden plunge in temperature, causing “Doggerland”’s coasts to be battered by freezing winds. Around the same time, a sub-sea landslide on the seafloor off the coast of Norway, called the Storegga slide, triggered a tsunami that flooded the coastlines of northern Europe. The collapse

involved some 3,000 cubic km of sediment and the waves were about 10m (33 feet) high. By 5,500 BC the British Isles were now totally cut off from Europe as rising sea levels created the southern area of the North Sea, although the Dogger Bank remained as a low-lying marshy island less than 5m in height and covering an area about the size of Wales for another 500 years, but by around 5,000 BC the Dogger Bank finally disappeared under the North Sea. New arrivals

Around 4,000 BC a new people from the south arrived on the thickly-forested shores of the now British Isles. They came in boats, with sheep, cattle and cereals. This marked the beginning of what have been termed the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Between 3,500 and 2,500 BC arable farming and the domestication of animals began and henge monuments (circular enclosures with an internal ditch and an external bank broken by one or two entrances) were built at Thornborough on the gravels of the River Ure between Ripon and Boroughbridge. The three circular henges are aligned by a large cursus – two parallel ditches that stretch almost a mile, with a slight kink in shape, so the layout resembles the three stars of Orion’s Belt. Gypsum from further downstream on the river was spread across the banks to give the earthworks a sparkling covering of white. They were clearly sites of major ceremonial interest and are thought to be part of a ritual landscape comparable with Salisbury Plain. Sometimes called the “Stonehenge of the North”, their appearance, situation and workforce requirements all indicate their importance to those who built them. They are the most important ancient site between Stonehenge and Orkney. In fact, to these people, the area close to the River Ure was a sacred or holy area and must have been the supreme religious focus for the whole of northern England.

More locally, about 100 metres south-east of Thorpe Lodge was constructed a 75-metre circular double-banked feature with an interior circle of 10-metre diameter which was probably of importance, as the mediaeval ridge and furrow landscape next to it subsequently respected the shape. It may possibly be a Neolithic henge feature. During the early Bronze Age (around 2,300 BC) the first evidence appeared of semi-nomadic people gradually settling more permanently, although the overall population was sparse. Human occupation appeared in the Vale of York and implements made of bronze were used. The metal was refined from ore and hammered or cast into shape.

Between 700 BC and 70 AD (known as the Iron Age) people continued to farm, to clear forest and to use stone tools. Only gradually did iron tools and weapons become adopted. There were major changes in burial rituals away from cremations to using circular mounds of earth (known as barrows). Around 200 metres to the south west of a natural spring at Hood Hole Farm (now on Harrogate Road) were constructed two ring ditches. Around 150 metres on the east side of the present A61 Ripon-Ripley road there is a track-way running north-south for around 600 metres before bending to the south- east. Near the southern end of the track-way to the east there is a large 120 x 100 metres rectangular double-banked enclosure containing numerous circular features, hut circles and pits.

150 metres south-east of Thorpe Lodge there is a rectangular enclosure 75 x 30 metres aligned east-west which shows up in aerial photographs as light markings, indicating either rubble or stone foundations. To the south-east of Thorpe Lodge and south-west of Park Hill there is an area of

circular anomalies that are possibly Iron Age farmsteads with a west-running curved track, although the traces are overlain with mediaeval ridge and furrow.

At Potgate Quarry, near Ripon, around 130 BC an enclosure was home to several families. Stone beads and quern stones for milling have been discovered.

People locally would have been members of Celtic tribes. Water and watery places were held in great reverence, perhaps suggesting portals between worlds and such natural springs to various gods were strongly revered. One such was St Helen’s Well – a Celtic holy well (probably pre-Christian), grid reference SE 3018 6901 – a strong spring rising at the head of St Helen’s Gutter. Both were named much later after St. Helena (or Helen) of Constantinople, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, who was allegedly born in York. She was made a saint because she went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and (again allegedly) found the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. The water is channelled underground and emerges from an opening in a small section of dry-stone walling. It is one of over twenty-five holy wells in Britain dedicated to St Helen.

What have the Romans ever done for us? A Roman invasion of lowland Britain took place in 43 AD by 40,000 troops led by the Roman Emperor Claudius. Claudius received deputations from eleven kings and queens, including Queen Cartimandua (the name means “Sleek Pony”) of the Brigantes tribe and made terms for peace and made Brigantia a client state of Rome. It is highly likely that large loans helped to smooth the way. The native population of Littlethorpe, the Celtic or Brythonic tribal or clan confederation of the Brigantes (the name could mean “hill-dwellers”, “high-persons”, “high-place or “highlanders” or be derived from the Celtic mother-goddess, Brigit) were the largest tribal grouping in northern England and in pre-Roman times controlled Brigantia – the largest section of what would become northern England between Tyne and Humber, centred around Yorkshire, straddling the Pennines and reaching down to both the North Sea and Irish Sea coasts. They were both territorially and population-wise the largest tribe in Britain, encompassing sub-tribes or “septs”. They lived in small villages and raised cattle, sheep, goats, pigs and horses. At least in the upper part of their tribal society the Brigantes were wealthy. Three miles north of Ripon at Hutton Moor is a large earthwork created by them. Their tribal “capital” was at the huge Iron Age hillfort at Stanwick, near Scotch Corner. This comprises over 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) of ditches and a perimeter of massive rampart dykes enclosing approximately 300 hectares (800 acres) of land and included a substantial water supply.

The name Mankin Lane may well date from this period, as the term “mankin” is of Celtic origin. The “kin” means leader or head and in the combined form “mankin” means head of a group or headman. In the Oxford Old English Dictionary (OOED) a “mankin” was a fierce wild man. It is a term particularly associated with Yorkshire (there is a Mankinholes near Todmorden).

During the Roman invasion of Britain the Governor, Publius Ostorius Scapula, was forced to abandon his campaign against the Deceangli tribe of north Wales and the Druid sanctuary on Mona (Anglesey) in 47 AD because of “disaffection” among the Brigantes , whose leaders had, until that time, been seen as allies of Rome. A few of those who had taken up arms were killed and the rest were pardoned. The following year a Roman army operated in Brigantia assisted Queen Cartimandua in suppressing the rebels. The Brigantian aristocracy imported Romanised goods and masonry buildings were constructed.

Elsewhere in Britain the defeated British resistance leader Caratacus of the Catuvellauni tribe fled north in 51 AD after having tried and failed to raise an insurrection in the south was defeated in a last stand against the Romans at Dinas Emrys and sought sanctuary with Queen Cartimandua, but she showed her loyalty to the Romans by handing him over in chains. She and her husband Venutius of the Carvetii tribe were therefore described by the Romans as loyal and “defended by Roman arms”, but they later divorced. Venutius was outraged by what he considered his wife’s pro-Roman treachery and he took over Caratacus’ role as leader of the Brigantian opposition to Rome. Thus during the the Governorship of Aulus Didius Gallus (52-57 AD) the estranged Venutius gathered an army and invaded Brigantia, starting a civil war - but the Romans sent troops to defend Queen Cartimandua and so defeated Venutius’ rebellion. Ten years later, in 67 AD Queen Cartimandua married Venutius’ charioteer and armour-bearer, Vellocatus, and raised him to the kingship. By 69 AD Venutius staged another rebellion, taking advantage of Roman instability in the “year of the four Emperors”. Venutius called for help from the Selgovae and the Novantes tribes based north of Brigantia in what is now southern Scotland. The Romans under Governor Marcus Vettius Bolanus were only able to send an auxiliary force of Batavian (Dutch) horse and foot soldiers who succeeded in rescuing and evacuating Queen Cartimandua but left Venutius and his anti-Roman supporters in total control of the kingdom. After Vespasian’s accession as Emperor that same year Quintus Petillius Cerialis was appointed Governor of Britain and the conquest of the Brigantes was begun, but took many decades to eventually complete. Governor Quintus Petillius Cerialis led IX Hispana Legion based at Lincoln northwards in 70 AD into Brigantia via Hull in order to quell the civil war between Queen Cartimandua and Venutius. By the next year the Roman military advance had subdued the Brigantes and had reached Eboracum - the name means “place of the yew trees” (York), effectively ending Celtic or Brythonic rule in what is now England. The Legionary fortress of Eboracum was set up and was the military rather than the civic base. Constructed at a bend in the River Ouse, at this time the sea-tide washed up from the Humber and the small sixty-man patrol ships could supply the army base from the sea. The Brigantian survivors were pushed north into Caledonia.

One of the Roman objectives in conquering Brigantia was to gain access to its’ natural resources – especially lead, which was mined at Greenhow Hill. Aldborough (Isurium Brigantum), six miles to the east of Ripon on the Roman road of Dere Street, became the centre of the local civitas (civilian administrative area) that took in all of North Yorkshire and was, in effect, the civic capital of the northern province of Roman Britain. Situated at the junction of roads from Eboracum (York), Calcaria (Tadcaster), Olicana (Ilkley) and Cataractonium (Catterick), it was defended by an earthen rampart and ditch and included an amphitheatre for combined spectacles and entertainments – making it the equivalent of a national theatre of the north. The amphitheatre was also flanked by a sports stadium (all at an area now known as Studforth Hill) and the town would also have included a forum, stone and brick buildings and temples to the gods. The civitas was run by the ordo, a council of decuriones, men of property drawn from the region as well as the town – more a county council than a town council. At full complement, the ordo of a civitas had 100 members with property over a certain value.

Venutius’ rebellion was finally crushed at the Battle of Stanwick in 74 AD. He had created a defensive structure whose great length made it impossible to defend. Druid priests had built “ghost fences”, placing skulls at important points on the turf walls trying to use magic to protect the tribesmen and their horses and repel the advancing legionaries, but this clearly did not work.

By the 80s AD the Romans were smelting lead at Greenhow in Nidderdale. There is some further archaeological evidence for Roman occupation in the central Ripon area, which might have included structures of some sophistication.

Brigantian resistance continued, however and between 78 and 84 AD Roman Governor Gnaeus Julius Agricola engaged in warfare on Brigantian territory. Later when Hadrian became Emperor in Rome in 117, his appointment coincided with another major revolt against the Romans by the Brigantes, but Quintus Pompeiuss Falco, the new Governor of Britain, finally subdued them.

All did not go the Romans way, however, for in 120 the 9th Hispania legion marched up Dere Street (the A68) and into what is now Scotland – and disappeared. As a result 122 saw the commencement of building of the 73-mile long Hadrian’s Wall, although it was not completed until 136. It was probably built to keep the Brigantes from allying with the tribes in the lowlands of what is now Scotland. In the militarised zone to the south of the Wall in Durham and North Yorkshire there were no major cities (with the exception of Eboracum) and very few rural villas were located. Native sites have produced very few Roman coins and artefacts. Most of the local Brigantian population continued to live in traditional roundhouses in increasingly impoverished conditions. The massive Roman military presence (some 60,000 soldiers) subsequently had a parasitical effect on the people living in the militarised frontier zone. Native economic and cultural development largely ground to a halt. Two Roman roads passed within a few miles of Ripon and there is a tradition of a Roman ford about 50 yards below North Bridge. A military outpost also existed at North Stainley. The foundations of the crypt of the Cathedral contain re-used Roman stones which suggests use of material from a pre-existing Roman structure and tessellated pavements represent the existence of a high-status building.

The language that people spoke at this time was a Celtic one, closer to that spoken by the Cornish and the Welsh than the Gaels of Ireland and their descendants, who would later colonise western Scotland.

Despite the militarisation of the area in 155 the Brigantes arose in revolt again and in the years 180-192 there were frequent raids from Caledonia across Hadrian’s Wall. A sign of the times was the construction of stone defences around 200 at Isurium Brigantum (Aldborough) which was now the headquarters of the IX Legion and also the largest civilian settlement in the area. Between 208 and 2012 Eboracum became the makeshift capital of the Roman Empire as Emperor Septimus Severus, with a force of 40,000 soldiers and a supporting fleet marched north into Caledonia. As part of the Emperor’s reforms between 2011 and 2012 Britain was divided into two provinces – Britannia Superior (the south) and Britannia Inferior (the north).

By 237 Eboracum (York) was the largest town in Britain and was granted the honorary rank of a Roman colony and between 260 and 300 large numbers of low-value coins begin to circulate and function as everyday currency. In 285 the Roman Empire was split into Eastern and Western Empires and in 296 Eboracum (York) made the administrative centre of Brittannia Secunda.

By 300 the overall population of British Isles was probably about 4 million. In northern England most people continued to live in the traditional roundhouses of the pre-Roman Iron Age. People had smaller heads and shorter facial heights than the modern population, yet also had large powerful jaws and would have appeared heavily-jowled.

In 306 Constantine the Great crowned Roman Emperor at Eboracum and in 313 Christianity was officially approved as the official religion within the Roman Empire, despite the fact that it was espoused by only 4 -5% of the citizens of the Empire.

Attacks by Picts and Scots across Hadrian’s Wall continued and led to an expeditionary force being sent across the Channel in 343 in order to shore up defences. By 360 the Picts and Scots began a series of hit-and-run raids. A large field army was sent from Rome to deal with this unrest. However, in 367 took place the “Barbarian Conspiracy” - coordinated attacks by Picts from Caledonia, Scoti warriors from Ireland and Saxons and Franks from Germania. Disgruntled soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall probably colluded with the northern tribes and opened the gates. There was also a sea-borne invasion. A whole swathe of northern Britannia was overrun and countless civilians were slaughtered. More troops had to be brought in from Rome to deal with this. It took two years for the commanding general to restore order and rid Britain of the small war bands and motley groups of army deserters who roamed the countryside, absconding with cattle, loot and British captives.

In 391 pagan religions were banned within the Roman Empire by Emperor Theodosius I – all forms of sacrifice and veneration even of household idols was forbidden. Despite such Christianisation measures 396-398 saw another invasion by Picts, Scots and Saxon sea raiders. Things became so bad that in 402 the Roman army was withdrawn from Eboracum. Later in the century Eboracum reverted back to marshland. Finally, in 410 all Roman troops departed Britain. While in some of the cities of Roman Britain things carried on as normal, by-and-large towns were mostly empty, organised industries dead and connections with the larger Roman world severed. Although Christian practices survived as folk traditions after the departure, the Christian church, with its hierarchy, priesthood and teachings, did not.

Celts and Saxons

Where Littlethorpe exists was probably ruled between 410 and 420 from York by the Romano-British Coel Hen (Cole the Old) (350-420) – the last Duces Brittanniarum (Dux or Duke of the Britons) to be appointed by an Emperor - the original “Old King Cole”. Subsequently the Romano-British kingdom broke up into smaller kingdoms with the local one being based in York and called Ebrauc.

Between 430 and 440 Germanic peoples from Europe began making their way to Britain, mostly in small family groups, a boatload or two at a time. Most had never used coins or seen a town. Most were from northern Germany, Frisia or southern Scandinavia. They wanted land to farm and woods where their swine could forage. The arrival of these people took place gradually over the next 100 years – a long historical process rather than a single historical event. The incoming migrants had little social hierarchy and no warrior aristocracy. At first resistance to these attacks was successful but increasingly the east of the country fell under their control. The newcomers were pagan (and remained so until the end of the sixth century) but the Roman British were officially Christian, although more as a folk tradition than as practice. In 442 a revolt took place by Anglian mercenaries (who came from the Schleswig-Holstein peninsula on the border of what is now Denmark and Germany) based in Kent – they gradually came to dominate the country.

This was a time of great change and distress. In 446 what became England was hit by plague. By 450 Roman coinage had gone out of circulation. St Patrick reintroduced Christianity to Britain in the 460s and founded the Celtic Church.

Resistance to the Anglo-Saxons continued and in 500 saw the defeat of an Anglo-Saxon army at Mount Badon in the West Country by British forces led by a Dux Bellorum (War Lord) – possibly Arthur. Yet in the 500s a minor Anglian tribe called Hrype from maritime Germany where the neck of Denmark protrudes into the Baltic, advanced up the River Ure and founded the farming settlement of Rypum or Inhrypum (Ripon) near its’ junction with the River Skell. Their entire area of Hrype settlement covered Yorkshire and the East Midlands.

Times were hard. Between 536 and 548 a violent volcanic eruption and dust storm brought prolonged dry fog, crop failure and acute bread shortages to the British Isles. The sun’s rays were partially blocked by heavy particles in the atmosphere and temperatures fell world-wide. It was probably caused by a massive volcanic eruption in East Asia. The year 543 saw another outbreak of pandemic plague in what became England.

In 547 a band of pirates, the Bernicii (Angles from southern Denmark) led by Ida, established themselves at the stronghold of Bamburgh on the Northumbrian coast. Led by ambitious and dynamic kings they carved out the kingdom of Bernicia which eventually became part of Northumbria. From around 550 onwards a few people had more over everything – resources, alliances, access – than their grandparents. The widening chasm between the socially inferior (who made up the bulk of the population) and the socially blessed (who never constituted more than a small minority) was becoming established. In 560 the British kingdom of Ebrauc was subjugated by Angles who called the territory Dewyr or Deira. In 600 at the Battle of Catraeth (Catterick) the Angles of Bernicia and Deira defeated a coalition of Brythonic tribes – the Gododdin (from Lothian), from Strathclyde, from Gwynedd and from Pictland – and extended their kingdom north of the River Wear. From around now Eoforwic (York) began to develop as a town.

After the Battle of Chester in 616 Angle tribes moved from the east coast to the west,consolidating a belt of territory from the Humber to the Mersey and dividing the Brythonic or Celtic Welsh in Wales from the Brythonic or Celtic tribes in the north. What was to become Littlethorpe was part of the kingdom of Deira (or land of the waters), which was then united by King Aethelfrith with the more northern kingdom of Bernicia to form the single realm of Northumbria with its’ capital at Eoforwic (York), although Deira still retained its own individuality.

King Eadwin of Northumbria was converted to Christianity in 627 at Yeavering in Northumberland by Bishop Paulinus – and the majority of his subjects followed his example. The royal conversion was opportunistic – he sought a dynastic marriage with the sister of King Eadbald of Kent and that monarch insisted that Eadwin convert to Christianity. An oratory of wood was built at Eboracum and King Eadwin was baptised there on Easter Sunday by Paulinus. Afterwards a larger stone church was built on the site of the wooden one. When finished it housed the cathedra or throne of the bishops of York. Mass baptisms followed in the River Swale at Catraeth and Yeavering. Yet in 632 King Eadwin of Northumbria was defeated at the Battle of Hatfield Chase by King Penda of Mercia which led to continuing struggles between Mercia and Northumbria for supremacy over Deira. Thus between 633 and 634 Northumbria collapsed into its’ two constituent kingdoms and reverted to paganism.

The world of Wilfred

634 was also the year that St Wilfred (originally spelled Wilfrith) was born into an aristocratic Northumbrian Anglian family from Deira. As a boy, he ministered to his father’s aristocratic guests.In the midst of the Northumbrian reversion to paganism the year 635 saw the founding of the Celtic Church monastery of Lindisfarne by St Aidin, who travelled there from the west coast of Scotland at the invitation of King Oswald of Northumbria. This was to be the base for converting Northumbria to Celtic Christianity, which became much more influential in Northumbria than the Roman system.

In 646 St Wilfred, aged twelve and following a conflict with his stepmother left home (without his father’s consent) and in 649, at the age of 14 was sent to serve in the court of the King Oswiu of Bernicia who later became King of a reunited Northumbria. A year later, aged 15 and having impressed Queen Eanfleda he joined the monastery at Lindisfarne where he was educated. In 652 he travelled to Canterbury in Kent to wait for a suitable opportunity to travel on to Rome. He met with Benedict Biscop and was exposed to the current Roman version of Jerome’s psalms. In 653 Wilfred and Benedict Biscop made the journey to Rome. Wilfred stayed for a year with the Bishop of Lyon on the way and was taken under the wing of Count Dalfinus, who offered Wilfred land and his daughter. In Rome Wilfred became immeres in the dogma and liturgy of the Roman church. In 655 Wilfred returned to Lyon after months in Rome and stayed for three years with Count Dalfinus.

In 657 a group of Celtic monks were granted land equivalent to thirty or forty farms by Prince Alchfrith, ruler of the Northumbrian province of Deira (and the son of the King of Northumbria, Oswald) to support a new monastery located north-east of the present Ripon Cathedral. The monastery was one of numerous religious colonies which were the result of both Christian fervour and a reaction away from war and towards a social life and industry. The monastery did not represent the Roman Christianity of Augustine which Paulinus had introduced into Deira from Canterbury, but the Christianity which had come from Ireland through St Patrick and then St Columba’s missionary college at Iona and which was predominant throughout the north. This Celtic monastery was founded by Eata of Melrose on the Tweed (a pupil of St Aidan and previously Abbot of Melrose Abbey and of Lindisfarne), who was the mentor of the Guest-Master, St Cuthbert. Like most monks in this period, the Ripon monks probably followed no definite Rule. The monastery, made of wood, occupied as site between the present Priest Lane and Stonebridgegate. It would have consisted of a small aisle-less nave and square chancel. At this time Ripon comprised no more than 30 houses.

In 658 Count Dalfinus was murdered. Wilfred returned from his pilgrimage to Rome to England, tonsured and with relics and gifts. He was recommended by King Cenwalh of Wessex to Prince Alchfrith of Northumbria (Oswiu’s son) as a cleric well-versed in Roman custom and liturgy and was granted ten hides of land (a hide was sufficient to support a household) at Stamford by Alchfrith.

By 660 the Celtic monastery in Ripon was completed but the following year, as Roman Christianity gained force, King Oswiu (Oswald)’s son Prince Alchfrith, deserting his former convictions, transferred total control of the monastery and 30 hides of land to Wilfred (now aged 27) who became Abbot and the Scottish monks, led by the previous Abbot Eata, being offended by the theology and practices that Wilfred had acquired on the continent, refused to conform to Roman usage and left Ripon in a body. Wilfred’s reputation for failure as a conciliator was established. St Cuthbert was one of the monks expelled. Wilfred imposed upon their successors the Benedictine Rule, which he had studied at Rome and promoted the most up-to-date Roman customs, including

the singing of plainchant. At this point Wilfred was not even yet in priest’s orders. It was not until 663 that Wilfred was ordained as a priest by Agilbert, the Frankish Bishop of Wessex, at Dorchester-on-Thames. He thus served for five years as Abbot before he became a member of the priesthood. The following year was a key date. In 664 took place the Synod of Whitby. St Wilfred (now aged 30) represented the Roman party at a council convened to decide between the Roman and Celtic methods of calculating the date of Easter – the Celtic Easter was one week in advance of that of Rome. Regional tensions within the two traditional divisions of Northumbria played a part, with churchmen in Bernicia favouring the Celtic method of dating and those in Deira leaning towards the Roman method. King Oswiu of Northumbria ruled in favour of Roman rather than Celtic custom and practice in the Christian Church. His son Prince Alchfrith and his Queen Eanfled already followed Roman rites. This took place against a terrible backcloth. There was another outbreak of plague and also crop failure and famine, triggered by either an extremely wet or dry summer.

Flushed with his success, in 665 Wilfred was appointed Bishop of Northumberland at York, his see encompassing all of Northumbria, this at the age of 31. This was the origin of the subsequent connection of Ripon with the Archbishops of York. Wilfred insisted on being consecrated by Agilberht (by now Bishop of Paris) because of the lack of what he considered to be validly consecrated Bishops in England at that time (he considered them schismatics), and he travelled to Compiegne in Francia for this. During his absence Prince Alchfrith led an unsuccessful revolt against his father, King Oswiu, leaving a question mark over Wilfred’s appointment as Bishop.

Returning from Francia the following year (666) Wilfred’s (now aged 32) found another Bishop – Ceadda (St Chad) who favoured the Celtic rite – in possession of the see. He retired to Ripon and also to the work of a missionary Bishop in Kent and Mercia for some three years. Exile did not last long – in 669 Wilfred was restored to his bishopric by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of Canterbury at the age of 35, Ceadda being deposed. A year later King Oswiu of Northumbria died and was succeeded by King Ecgfrith. Wilfred now expelled all the Benedictine monks from Ripon in preparation for his great project. In 672 construction began of the Abbey Church of St Peter’s at the village of “Rhypum” (Ripon) on the site of the current cathedral. It was an aisled basilica, of the type common on the continent. This was only the second stone building erected in the Kingdom of Northumbria and the first church to incorporate a porticus (a porch leading to the entrance of a building or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls), similar to those of churches in Kent. Wilfred brought stonemasons, plasterers and glaziers from Lyon in Francia (present-day France) and Italians from Rome to work on the stone church which was supported by various columns and side-aisles, many windows, arched vaults and a winding cloister. It was probably financed by the plunder of British churches in the Pennines. Wilfred tried to extort land from King Ecgfrith in return for persuading his Queen Aethelthryth to consummate her marriage, but she remained a virgin. Aethelthryth became a nun at Ely and Wilfred lost his principal royal patron.

By 678 King Ecgfrith, irritated by Wilfred’s unconciliatory temper, invited Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, to his court and the huge northern diocese was divided into four separate sees, a process which Theodore welcomed as he wished to reform the English church by breaking up some of the larger dioceses into smaller ones. Bishop Wilfred (now aged 47) lost the royal favour and was expelled from York and banished and it was Eadhaed who was consecrated as the first Bishop of Ripon. This was resented by Wilfred (now aged 44) who, after preaching in Frisia, wandering in

Mercia and Wessex, living as apostle and bishop of the South Saxons in Selsey (Sussex) appealed to Pope Agatho and set out for Rome to make his case, while prophesying doom to King Ecgfrith.

He was successful. In 679 a papal synod ordered Wilfred’s restoration and the following year he returned to Northumbria to enforce Pope Agatho’s decree of restoration, but endured a lengthy imprisonment at Broninis (site unknown) and Dunbar and further exile in Mercia as King Ecgfrith refused to honour the papal decree. Wilfred spent the next few years at Selsey, where he founded an Episcopal see and converted the pagan inhabitants of the Kingdom of Sussex to Christianity.

Finally, in 681 the Abbey Church of St Peter’s was consecrated. In attendance were a great concourse of clergy and nobles, headed by King Ecgfrith of Northumbria. The endowments included certain lands around Ripon (almost certainly including Littlethorpe) which had belonged to the British (Celtic) Church before the coming of the Angles. The feasting lasted for three days. By 686 Wilfred (now aged 52) was reinstated as Bishop of York and Hexham by King Aldfrith of Northumbria, successor to Ecgfrith, who had died in battle with the Picts, with a see combining Ripon and York and with lands at Ripon and Hexham. This was probably after a reconciliation organised by Archbishop of Canterbury Theodore.

Wilfred’s disputatious nature continued and in 687 a dispute arose between him and the Lindisfarne monks as a result of which the monks were purged. Four years later Wilfred was deprived of his see again by King Aldfrith at the age of 57 after a quarrel over lands and the sub-division of the diocese. He went to Mercia where he helped missionaries, founded monasteries at Oundle and Brixworth and acted as Bishop for the Mercian king. Once again he appealed to the Pope (Sergius 1) about his expulsion and the Pope ordered that a council be held to decide the issue. This took place in 703 at Austerfield in West Yorkshire. King Aldfrith of Northumbria and Berhtwald, Archbishop of Canterbury upheld Wilfred’s expulsion, excommunicated him and made him promise he would cease to act as Bishop and retire to the monastery and not leave without the King’s permission. They also attempted to confiscate all of Wilfred’s possessions. In protest, Wilfred (now aged 69) set out again for Rome, where the Pope again decided in his favour. Two years later Wilfred (now aged 71) returned to Ripon and attempted to conciliate King Eadwulf of Northumbria, Aldfrith’s successor – but in vain, as he was ordered to stay out of Northumbria. In the same year, however, Eadwulf was succeeded as King of Northumbria by Aldfrith’s son King Osred to whom Wilfred acted as a spiritual adviser. Another synod was held at Nidd when it was decided, in the presence of King Osred and Archbishop Berhtwald, that Wilfred should resign as Bishop of York and be Abbot of the monasteries of Hexham and Ripon. He undertook these roles until 709 when he accepted the bishopric of Leicester, but on arrival at the monastery at Oundle he died, aged 75. He left his monasteries and portable wealth to close relatives. At his death he may have been the richest man in Europe. He was a paradox – an otherwise acetic man who had obtained extensive landed estates and supported an armed retinue; a contentious patriarch who read the gospels of forgiveness and brotherly love and yet hounded those who sincerely espoused different nuances of worship with all the implacable tenacity of a bull terrier; a man who promoted the cause of a church that was so fiercely wedded to authority and hierarchy, yet who defied and affronted his superiors at every turn.

His body was brought back by monks to Ripon and buried near the altar of the church. As a result, Ripon became an important shrine and pilgrimage destination during the Middle Ages. The following year the church at Ripon (now known as Hyrpis or Hripis) celebrated the first anniversary of Wilfred’s death with a commemoration service attended by all the abbots of his monasteries. A spectacular white arc was said to have appeared in the sky starting from the gables of the basilica where his bones were laid to rest. The giving of land and offerings to saints like Wilfred was the greatest economic movement of the times. Saints became proprietors of the churches that housed them, befriended those who gave to them and became enemies to those who disturbed their repose. Like some huge gravitational force, the saint’s grave attracted people and trade.

Wilfred has been described as someone who:

“impressed his contemporaries more by his haughty, uncompromising temperament than his ascetic, contemplative life: his was an ambitious, stubborn and difficult man yet also, it must be said, energetic and scrupulous about pursuing what he considered the right course – regardless, indeed, not only of whether others agreed with him but even of the consequences to himself.” (EnglishChurchArchitecture.net)

The coming of the Northmen

793 saw the sacking of Lindisfarne by the first Danish Viking raiders, but it was not until 865 that further Danish Viking raiders (the Micel Here or Great Heathen Army) but led by King Ragnar Lodbrok (a Swedish king) began conquest and settlement in Northumbria. He was captured and executed in a snake pit at the Northumbria court. Ragnar Lodbrok’s eldest son, Ivar Ragnarsson (Ivar “the Boneless”) founder of the Clan Ivar, brother of Halfdan Ragnarsson “of the Wide Embrace” and of Ubbe Ragnarsson landed in East Anglia and headed north with the Great Heathen Army, taking Eoforwic (York), capital of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria in 866. Ivar probably suffered from osteogenesis imperfecta, an inherited form of severe brittle bone disease. Northumbria was then engaged in a bitter civil war between two rival factions led by King Osbert and his rival Aelle. The Scandinavians found the city undefended and entered it. With no-one to oppose them, the Scandinavians began to build up York’s defences, to make it theirs. In 867 the warring Northumbrians put aside their differences and attacked the city. The attack failed and both Osbert and Aelle were killed. Northumbria, once one of the greatest kingdoms in England, was now a Viking possession, and remained so for the next 87 years. A puppet king Ecgberht 1 was placed on the throne. The Great Heathen Army was no unified force but was based on scores of semi-autonomous boat crews drawn from different social groups and regions. Littlethorpe thus fell within Viking rule as part of the Viking kingdom, which eventually comprised the whole of former Northumbria and the Kingdom of Strathclyde. In 869 Ivar left command of the Great Heathen Army and of the Danes in England to Halfdan and Ubbe, and emigrated to Dublin.

In 874-876 after wintering at Repton in Derbyshire the Great Heathen Army split in two, with half following their leaders back to Northumbria – and within two years the men were taking land and settling down there. Ivar the Boneless had meanwhile become “King of All Scandinavians in the British Isles”. The land of the kingdom of Northumbria was shared-out amongst Vikings by Guthrum and Halfdan after Ivar died in 873, although most of the local population were allowed to retain their lands under the lordship of their Scandinavian conquerors. These Vikings largely came from Denmark and changed the name of York from Eoforwic to Jorvik. All the early monasteries in the area were destroyed and the monastic estates taken over, although the minster churches largely

survived the plundering and eventually the Danish leaders were converted to Christianity, so that in the late 9th century Jorvik was ruled by a Christian Viking king – Guthfrith. It was under the Danes that the ridings were established, with their boundaries meeting at Jorvik, the administrative and commercial capital of the region.

By 878 all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Northumbria, Mercia and East Anglia) had been conquered by the Vikings – only Wessex remained. 886 saw the Treaty of Wedmore made between Alfred the Great and the Danish warlord Guthrum, partitioning England between Wessex and the Danelaw – the area acknowledged to be under heavy Danish settlement and rule. Littlethorpe remained within this latter area. A further Danish army landed in 893 but restricted its’ campaign to the Danelaw and left Alfred’s kingdom undisturbed.

In 900 a second church was erected at Ripon, built on what was to become the Cathedral.

In the year 919 the powerful Norse-Irish Viking dynasty from Dublin (the Clan Ivar), now led by King Ragnald again seized Jorvik, minted their own coins and engaged in diplomacy with the neighbouring kingdoms of North Wales, Scotland, Cumbria and Strathclyde. They established a kingdom spanning the Irish Sea, centred on Jorvik and Dublin. Ragnald died and Jorvik was then ruled in the 920s by King Sihtric, either his brother or cousin.

King Athelstan of Wessex (aged 30) visited Ripon in 924 as part of measures to extend his kingdom’s boundaries, when he invaded and conquered Northumbria from the Vikings. Ripon Minster was granted the right of sanctuary by King Athelstan as part of the Liberty of St Wilfred – valid within an area of a mile in every direction from the town and marked by eight crosses. Within the boundary of the settlement sanctuary could be granted overnight for fugitives (homicides, thieves and debtors). The penalties for molesting refugees were:-

- Between the limit and the graveyard wall: £18- Within the graveyard: £36- Within the choir (where the pursued sought the last possible refuge at the “grythstool”

(chair of sanctuary): Confiscation of good and possible death.

Those who took sanctuary were called “grythmen” (from the Anglo-Saxon “gryth” – peace)and undertook to carry the banners before the relics of St Wilfred in certain processions. Wessex ruled North Yorkshire until Athelstan’s death in 939.

Athelstan met with King Sihtric at Jorvik and gave away his sister in marriage to him, in return for the King becoming Christian. In 927 Sihtric died and his brother Guthfrith took over. Athelstan invaded and expelled Guthfrith and Olaf, Sihtric’s son. He entered Jorvik, demolished the Scandinavian fortifications and distributed the loot he found there to his army. For the first time a southern king ruled directly in York. Maintaining that rule was to keep north and south at war for the next quarter of a century. At the Battle of Brunanburh (on the Wirral) in 937 King Athelstan defeated a “grand alliance” coalition of disaffected Welsh, Scots and Norse kings and established Wessex (English) hegemony. One of the rebels was Olafr Guthfrithsson of the Clan Ivar.

Death of King Athelstan of Wessex died in 939 and left the throne to his half-brother Eadmund, a young man of 18. There then followed a 15-year struggle for power in Northumbria where the last energies of the Northumbrian kingship attempted to resist the trend of English (Wessex) history and

the military power of Athelstan’s successors. Olafr Guthfrithsson invaded and the Scandinavian settlers of Jorvik ignored their previous promises of allegiance to Athelstan and elected Olafr King – the Clan Ivar was back again. By 940 King Olafr Guthfrithsson had recovered the whole of the Danelaw under his rule, but in 941 he died and his cousin Olafr Sihtricsson was chosen as his successor. King Olafr Sihtricsson submitted himself to King Eadmund of Wessex in 942 and was baptised a Christian, but the following year he was thrown out by the Scandinavians of Jorvik and Olafr Guthfrithsson’s brother Ragnald was made King in his place. Ragnald and Olafr Sihtricsson engaged in a civil war and both approached King Eadmund of Wessex to seek his acceptance of their claim to the throne. In 944 King Eadmund marched his army into Jorvik and sent Ragnald and Olafr Sihtricsson packing, but two years later King Eadmund of Wessex killed by an assassin and succeeded by his brother Eadred.

The conflict between the Vikings and Wessex continued. In 947 Jorvik elected Eric Bloodaxe, son of the King of Norway, as their King. His reign lasted only a few months as he was driven out by King Eadred of Wessex. The following year Ripon Minster was devastated by King Eadred of Wessex as part of the harrying of Northumbria - a war against Eric Bloodaxe and as a warning to the Archbishop of York. At this time Ripon was completely rural in character, with wooden houses and barns clustered round the church and protected by a dry ditch 18 feet wide with a wooden palisade and gates. The population was tiny, probably only 200-300, swelled by travelling stonemasons and sculptors who worked on the church and by seasonal shepherds and farmers who worked in the summer months in Nidderdale and Wensleydale. Following the defeat of Eric Bloodaxe, in 949 Olafr Sihtricsson was re-installed as a local puppet King of Jorvik by King Eadred of Wessex, but the following year Ripon Minster was destroyed by Vikings and in 952 Eric Bloodaxe was again elected King of Jorvik. In the midst of this confusion Oda, Archbishop of Canterbury visited the half-ruined and deserted site of the Minster and stole the bones of St Wilfred and removed them to Canterbury. Oda was the son of one of the warriors who had accompanied the Great Heathen Army to England.

In 954 Eric Bloodaxe was finally killed and his Vikings driven out of Northumbria, thereby ending almost 100 years of Anglo- Scandinavian rule. Some sort of hybridisation between the Scandinavian gods and Christianity had taken place in the Viking kingdom of Jorvik – this explains why the Archbishop of York retained his office after the Viking take-over and why southern English chroniclers denigrated such a compromise as paganism.

The Viking influence is evident in Littlethorpe’s name. A “Torp” or “Thorpe” is an Old Norse name for a small outlying settlement or homestead, a hamlet or farmstead. It implies a secondary or “daughter” village of lesser importance in an area considered second-rate and marginalised.

Further Viking raids took place in 980 and in 1002. In the latter case King Aethelread (the Unready) ordered the massacre of all Danes in England. Yet between 1016 and1035 England was ruled by King Cnut – who was also king of Denmark – making a strong cultural influence. The population of England was then about 2 million. They were divided into two categories – the free and the unfree. More than 10% of England’s population were slaves, used for hard agricultural labour and sexual gratification. Above the slaves were the remaining 90% who were free. The vast majority were classed as ceorls or churls – peasants – who most of the time worked on their own land. Above the ceorls were the nobility (thegns) – approximately 4-5,000 people (0.25% of the total population) –

distinguished from the people below them chiefly by owning a lot more land. At the apex of aristocratic society were the ealdormen – individuals who ran entire regions in the name of the king.

An English England In 995 Ripon Minster was restored and rebuilt. In that same year Ealdhun removed the body of St Cuthbert from Chester-le-Street to Ripon, on its’ final journey from Chester-le-Street to Durham Cathedral. In the early years of the 11th century the quarrying of magnesian limestone at Quarry Moor began. The stone was used for building purposes and lime burned in lime kilns and spread on the land. It was also used as a whitewash for internal walls. Well-to-do lay people began to organise themselves into guilds based around their local minster. Ripon would have been incredibly filthy and crawling with bugs. Cesspits, latrines and rubbish would have been omnipresent. Rural areas, like Thorpe, were probably (relatively) healthier – especially as it was a scattered community rather than a compact one.

The Archbishop of York’s Manor of Ripon consisted of the township of Ripon, plus Bondgate, Bishopton, Bishop Monkton, Sharow, North Stainley, Whitcliffe and Thorpe. The Archbishop had sole jurisdiction in disputes over land, felonies (except murder) and general disturbances of the peace.

Between 1060 and 1069 took place the appointment of the first Prebends at Ripon Minster by Archbishop Thurston of York, as the original monastery had now become a Minster or collegiate church. A Chapter or college of seven canons or senior priests staffed the Minster. Their income came from the church-owned lands or glebe. (A glebe was an area of land belonging to a benefice and assigned to support priests. It included land, farms, shops, houses, etc.) They held 14 bovates within St Wilfred’s league, which was equivalent to the Archbishop of York’s manor of Ripon. A bovate is the amount of land which could be ploughed using one ox in a single annual season – usually 15-20 acres. The individual estates were known as prebends (a portion granted out of the Minster revenue based on income from land and tithes) given as a stipend to each member of the Chapter (a Canon). Canons are priests who are members of the chapter of a cathedral or collegiate church and headed by a Dean. They are the legal body responsible for administering the cathedral and electing the Bishop and Archbishop. The tithes from the prebends included grain, dairy produce, poultry and meat which were intended to support the Canons. The Canons were therefore also known as prebenderies. They had to maintain houses in the town for at least twelve weeks of the year but many also held appointments elsewhere and rarely came to Ripon. Named at first after their Canon, then after Saints, the prebends eventually (from 1301) took on the name of their principal hamlet. Several tenants within the soke (jurisdiction) of the chapter were enfeoffed of property by the service of providing a man to carry St Wilfred’s shrine in procession at Ascension-tide and other feasts.

In 1066 Harald Hardrada (Harald the Ruthless), Earl Tostig Godwineson and their Danish army landed but were defeated by King Harold Godwineson at the Battle of Stamford Bridge at which Hardrada and Godwineson (King Harold’s brother) were killed. This was followed by the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest of England led by Duke William of Normandy – known to us as the Conqueror, but at the time called William the Bastard. Perhaps 20-30,000 Norman occupiers (about 1%) ruled over a population of two million. England effectively became a colony of Normandy.

The Norman yoke

In 1069 King Sweyn II of Denmark landed an army and took York, but was defeated by King William. In revenge came the Harrying (or harrowing) of the North (and particularly of the Vale of York) by William – the total subjugation of northern England through a scorched earth campaign:-

“He cut down many in his vengeance; destroyed the lair of others; harried the land and burnt houses to ashes. Nowhere else had William shown such cruelty. In his anger he commanded that all crops and herd, chattels and food of every kind should be brought together and burned to ashes in consuming fire, so that the whole region north of the Humber might be stripped of all means of sustenance. In consequence so serious a scarcity was felt and so terrible a famine fell upon the humble and defenceless populace that more than 100,000 Christian folk of both sexes, young and old, perished of hunger.” (Ordericus Vitalis – The Ecclesiastical History of England and Normandy, 11th century)

The land was salted to destroy the productivity of the soil and the survivors were reduced to cannibalism. It is estimated that one third of the population of the North (some 100,000 people) were killed, and there was substantial social, cultural and economic damage.

Previous invasions and influences had arrived in the north as much as the south. With the Normans the energy shifted to the south, with new forms of social division and class systems beginning to operate. The idea developed from this time that people in certain parts of the country were more advanced and important, more involved and more sophisticated and that those who were not were judged to be ecclesiastically, socially and culturally backward. This was true for those parts of England distant from the direct link to Normandy – the Channel and may have been the beginning of the North-South divide. French became the language of the court, administration and culture – and remained so for 300 years. English was demoted to everyday unimportant uses.

During this time (in 1069) Ripon Minster perished at the hands of William the Conqueror. In 1070 when Thomas of Bayeux became Archbishop of York he found the city deserted and waste. Although York was a great city the cathedral and archbishopric were poor and made poorer by invasions and insurrections in the five years before Thomas’ election. Unrest continued during his pontificate – the last native-led rebellion against Norman authority in Yorkshire was suppressed in 1071 and the cathedral was plundered by raiders in 1075.

Yet there were new beginnings. In 1080 came the commencement of the building of a new Ripon Minster under the authority of Archbishop Thomas of Bayeux. In 1086 Torp (Littlethorpe) was recorded in Domesday Book as a vill (a feudal administrative unit containing some combination of farms, hamlets and villages) with four carucates of arable land. A carucate (meaning the land area ploughed by a team of eight oxen) was a Danish unit of some one hundred and twenty acres – the land necessary to sustain a peasant household. The population comprised eighteen villagers, twenty-one smallholders, one freeman and a thegn – forty-one people in all). (The population of Bishop Monkton at this time was eleven.) The land was mostly ploughland but also included eighty-five acres of meadow, one league of woodland a mill and a fishery. It was a berewic (administrative area) of Ripon and was called “Torp” (later Thorpe). Torp and “Monucheton” (Bishop Monkton) were parts of the Manor of Ripum (Ripon).

Subsequent occupation has been continuous. At this time estates in the Ripon area had been reduced to a quarter of their former worth at the time of Edward the Confessor as a result of the Harrying of the North. Also listed in Domesday was Aismunderby, which existed prior to this date. There were only three households in Aismunderby. The lord of the manor was one Bernwulf and the tenant-in-chief was William de Percy, who also held estates in Huntingdonshire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. Also mentioned in Domesday was Markenfield, where there were two households.

At the time of Domesday 50% of the landed wealth in England (between 4,000 and 5,000 estates) had been prised out of the hands of native ownership and now lay in the hands of these 175 tenants-in-chief (men who held land worth more than £100 a year), most of whom were Normans. Amongst the rich holdings of the church, Norman control was just as overwhelming, with just only four out of sixteen bishops being English. Among the lower classes two-thirds of the population were un-free peasants and 10% were slaves. Twenty-five Norman magnates who were introduced into Yorkshire held over 90% of the county’s manors. The families who had previously held land were either deprived of their holdings or were reduced to sub-tenants.

“Norman saw on English oakOn English neck a Norman yokeNorman spoon in English dish

And England ruled as Normans wish.”(Sir Walter Scott)

Yorkshire at this time was frontier country, vulnerable to attach from the north by the Scots and from across the North Sea by the Danes. At this time Quarry Moor was an area of common pasture for the residents of Bondgate in Ripon. Cattle could be grazed between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. Outside these times cattle could be impounded and a fine imposed.

William died in 1087. On his deathbed William is claimed to have said:-

“I persecuted the native inhabitants of England beyond all reason. Whether nobles or commons. I cruelly oppressed them; many I unjustly disinherited; innumerable multitudes, especially in the county of York, perished through me by famine and sword. I am stained in the rivers of blood that I have shed.” At this time only 8% of land in England was still held by Anglo-Saxons – the remaining 92% was under Norman control. One third of the kingdom was owned by just one hundred and eighty immigrant Norman lords. Of the sixteen bishoprics only one was held by a non-Norman. The Norman occupation laid the foundation stone of the British class system and erected its’ chief pillar – the primacy of land ownership as the path to power.

Middle Ages

Torp (Littlethorpe) was an outlying settlement of Ripon – for the purposes of law and order it was grouped with Whitcliffe (another grange or berewic of the Archbishop of York, on the banks of the Skell, opposite Studley Roger) as Whitcliffe-with-Torp. It was part of the glebe of the Cathedral. Littlethorpe peasants were of low status and were subjects of either the Cathedral Chapter or the Archbishop.

Ridge-and-furrow earthworks from the later medieval period survive around the periphery of the village and close to Bishop Monkton. They can be seen because the land has subsequently been used for arable farming – as pasture or parkland – and thus “fossilised” and not subject to the modern deep ploughing which removes all trace of the mediaeval methods. Ridge-and-furrow was a method of farming in which repeated ploughing in the same direction caused the build-up of high ridges, separated by deep furrows. It is commonly found in areas with poor surface drainage. Ploughing would have been with a mouldboard plough, a form of plough introduced in late Saxon times in which a curved mouldboard behind the share, or cutting-edge, inverts the soil to bury weeds and form a true furrow. Repeated ploughing with a mouldboard plough gave rise to ridge-and-furrow.

Much of the land was common or wasteland, rendered unsuitable for agriculture by seasonal flooding and heavy clay-rich soils. What was farmed would have been an example of an open field landscape organised around the manor – a form of communal farming where peasant farmers worked individual strips which were held in two to four large open fields – so named because the strips within them were open and never fenced, hedged or ditched. It lacked the qualities of an independent village and remained manorially and ecclesiastically an outpost of Ripon. The original mediaeval village of Littlethorpe was 200 metres north of present-day Littlethorpe Hall.

In 1106 an attempted invasion of the liberties of the Ripon church was made by the Sheriff of York but was successfully resisted by Gerard, Archbishop of York, before arbitrators appointed by King Henry I. The King also exempted the lands of Ripon from castle-building.

In 1108 King Henry I granted Archbishop Thurstan of York the legal rights to hold a market and four-day fair (held in April) in Ripon centred on the feast of St Wilfred and held outside the Minster church. However, it was not until 1124 that the Archbishop’s Market, located at the Old Market Place at the top of Allhallowgate began and successive Archbishops became responsible for changing the face of Ripon by creating a brand new town centre to the west of the early church and through the establishment of the market bringing to the Archbishops a substantial income from its’ rents and tolls. 1124 was also the likely date that Ripon was granted borough status.

In 1132 thirteen Benedictine monks from St Mary’s Abbey, York thought that the regime there was not strict enough and wished for a more austere way of living. Archbishop Thurstan of York invited them to spend Christmas at the collegiate church at Ripon and on 26 th December led them to waste ground in the valley of the River Skell west of Ripon where Fountains Abbey was founded. The following year they adopted the Cistercian way of life. The monks themselves were Frenchified Normans – no-one else locally had sufficient breeding, learning or piety to enter such a community, although there were places available for the lay brethren – the half-educated workers who did the physical work of the Abbey.

During the troubled reign of King Stephen in 1138 the Scots descended into Yorkshire to aid the Empress Maud (or Matilda). Archbishop Thurstan sent against them all the levies which he, as a feudal baron, could muster, including men from the manor of Ripon. The victory which they won near Northallerton was known as the Battle of the Standard, from the banners of the three mother-churches (Ripon, York and Beverley) which waved over the English army. During the civil war between Stephen and Maud, Alan, Earl of Richmond entrenched himself on a hill neighbouring Ripon

in 1140 and grievously oppressed the town and its’ inhabitants. Led by him, the large landowners in the neighbourhood broke open the storehouses and granaries of the Archbishop. Again in 1143 Alan, Earl of Richmond burst into the Ripon church with an armed band and attacked Archbishop William Fitzherbert, the King’s nephew.

During this period the majority of the local population were engaged in small-scale farming. A growing number of families were living on the margin of subsistence and some of these turned to crafts and trade or industrial occupations. A 12th century hospital existed on the current Rotary Way in Ripon. It contained several buildings set within a banked enclosure, one of which was a leper house. Between 1147and 1180 the Archbishop of York, Roger de Pont L’Eveque initiated a Norman church on the Cathedral site and building continued until completed. The Le Bret family adopted the name de Markenfield. They lived in a house on the site of the current Markenfield Hall.

In the 1200s the next Archbishop of York, Geoffrey Plantagenet, was often in disagreement with his brothers – King Richard I and King John, but the manor of Ripon was the only portion of his temporalities of which King John did not deprive him. Aismunderby village featured a chapel (11.5 x 4.5 metres) and a market cross as part of a coherent village plan which also featured earthen baulks, ditches and cobblestone foundations. Excavations in the 1960s revealed 13th and 14th century pottery. A manor house was built at Bishop Monkton for the Archbishop of York to stay in when he travelled around on his Episcopal duties. It was replaced by Monkton Hall on the same site and demolished in 1850.

The centrality of the Cathedral to Ripon and Littlethorpe continued. Between 1220 and 1260 building work on the Cathedral, which included the addition of the West front, was completed by Archbishop Walter de Grey. The power of the Ripon Church was extensive in the town and surrounding area. Within their sphere included the assize of bread, ale, weights and measures, feudal dues, wrongful detention of land, theft, execution of royal writs – in fact, all the powers of a sheriff. In a court case in 1228 it was reported that the Canons of the Cathedral owned almost half the town of Ripon. The legal judgement in the case was given in favour of the Cathedral canons after a long trial in which the traditional privileges of the Cathedral chapter were upheld against the local sheriff and the bailiff of Archbishop of York Walter de Grey. Archbishop de Grey was not well-regarded, having refused to distribute his corn during a famine and because he erected Bishopthorpe Palace near York, ensuring that Ripon ceased to be a favourite provincial residence of the Archbishops. Nonetheless, the Archbishops still frequently visited the town, both for sport and duty. They had a park “six miles in compass” for hunting and fishing rights on the Ure. The court judgement also revealed that the Canons of Ripon Minster had had a Wednesday market and a five-day fair at the October feast of St. Wilfred, to mark his death, since King Athelstan’s time as part of the liberty franchise of the Liberty of St. Wilfred created by Athelstan in 924. The Horsefair was also already in existence. In 1270 Archbishop of York Gifford was compelled to exact from the Cathedral chapter a twentieth of their temporalities (secular properties and possessions) in order to fund Prince Edward who was setting-out on a crusade. In 1286 Archbishop Romanus of York had the East section of the Cathedral rebuilt and enlarged.

1292 saw the first recorded reference to Ripon’s Thursday market, when the Archbishop claimed to have this and two fairs, each of three days duration, one at the feast of St. Wilfred after Michaelmas and the other at the Invention of the Holy Cross, an anniversary associated with St Helena. Medieval fairs were mainly for the sale of livestock, but other produce was also on offer and there would be minstrels and other forms of street entertainment for the benefit of fair-goers and pilgrims. The

Archbishop’s officers regulated the fairs and markets and collected the various tolls involved, but it was not a popular task and could lead to violence.

In 1298 Archbishop of York de Newark called upon the Cathedral Chapter to assist in providing cavalry for King Edward I’s campaign against John Balliol, King of Scots.

The awful 14th century – and beyond

Around 1300 the population of England between 4.5 and 5 million. Ripon was engaged in cloth manufacture, although the balance was changing in favour of West Riding rural communities where it was a cottage industry and free of the restrictions of town guilds. In 1301 Ripon Minster prebends took on the name of their principal hamlet or township – hence the name of Thorpe Prebend House in Ripon – the prebendal house of the canons of Thorpe – it takes its’ name from Thorpe (Littlethorpe), although the estate included land and property in several other places. Rents and (chiefly) tithes from the prebends funded the lifestyle of the canons. While the canons may at first have lived in common, they eventually dwelt in prebendal houses around the church. There is no evidence that they ever resided in their prebends. A prebend house consisted of a “hall-house” or mansion, which included a tithe barn and kitchen. Each prebend carried with it a cure of souls, yet all were included in the huge parish of Ripon which had a radius of about 10 miles. The greatest difficulty the Church experienced was non-residence. The canons were often “pluralists” (holding a variety of benefices in different places) or foreigners appointed under pressure from the Pope or King. The canons dabbled in the wool trade, to their benefit. Sometimes a canon was suspected of being a layman himself, or a married man. A canon would often leave his prebend in the spiritual charge of a vicar engaged by the year or would sometimes farm it out even to a layman. Thus vicar-perpetuals were appointed under canons charged with the cure of souls in the district of the parish attached to each prebend. They were paid a stipend of six marks a year. From this point on they were almost as important a body as the canons, whom they relieved of all responsibility for parochial work and the performance of the services. In 1304 Nicholas of Bondgate granted the Ripon vicars two messuages (or holdings) on which to build their dwelling-house or Bedern for the College of Vicars. This was in the area between the current Old Deanery Hotel and Abbot Huby’s Wall.

The chief effect of the lordship of the Archbishop was the extraction of maximum profit from Ripon. This attitude brought about a condition approaching industrial stagnation as the conservative and institutionalised tradition of ecclesiastical administration permitted many restrictive practices to continue. The countryside, including Thorpe, was less affected, as the church increasingly relied upon the staple industry of the manor – agriculture.

All was not well within the church, however. In 1307 Archbishop Greenfields sequestrated three prebends which had been let out to farm by their canons and in 1308 he forbade buying and selling within the collegiate church and ordered the vicars to dwell in the Bedern. In 1310 Two women fought so savagely in the graveyard of the Church that it had to be re-consecrated. In 1311 the prebend of Thorpe was sequestrated by the Archbishop of York, as its’ holder, an Italian, was said to have obtained it surreptitiously – and was a married man! At around this time the vicariate was becoming demoralised. Vicars and inferior clergy were addicted to shows and sports, to dances and stage-plays, together with lay-people. Others were suspected of being night-walkers, house-breakers and of being “incontinent” (having physical relationships with women). A chaplain invented a gambling game called “ding-thrifts”. The laity begged at the altars under the pretence of being

proctors of absent canons. All this was in direct contradiction to the ruling of the Fourth Lateran Council, convened by Pope Innocent III in 1213, which stated that:-

“clerics should not attend the performance of mimes, entertainers or actors. They shall not visit taverns except when in case of necessity, namely when on a journey. They are forbidden to play dice or games of chance or be present at them.”

In the meantime in 1310 Thorpe Prebend House was reported to be in ruins but Canon John de Markenfield granted a licence to crenellate (fortify) Markenfield Hall by King Edward 11. de Markenfield was an associate of Piers Gaveston (who was probably the King’s lover). Later that year he (de Markenfield) was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer. Markenfield Hall is the most complete surviving medium-sized 14th century country houses left in England.

The years 1314 to 1314 were marked by the onset of major climate change – gales, rain, flooding and winter famine. Between 1315 and 1322 there were very poor harvests in the Ripon area. In 1316 King Edward II ordered Ripon to provide maintenance for Aymer de Valence, Earl of Pembroke, who was to pass through on his way to check raids by the Scots, following the English defeat at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314. In 1318 Ripon sent a contingent to the King’s forces against the Scots and the money to pay for this, together with a banner of St Wilfred, was provided by Archbishop of York, William de Melton. Later that year the inhabitants of Ripon huddled in the cathedral (there were no town walls) and for three days the town was given over to plunder. Eventually Ripon promised to pay the Scots invaders 1,000 marks not to burn the town altogether and to go away, although much damage was done to the church. The vicar’s bedern was destroyed. Taxation of 10 marks was made on Thorpe prebend (together with others) to pay for the damage done by the Scots. However, matters continued – between 1319 and 1323 Ripon was burned twice by raiding Scots under King Robert the Bruce. In 1327 and 1333 forces were levied in Ripon against the Scots. This happened again in 1342 when King Edward III also offered pardon to the Cathedral sanctuary-men if they would serve.

The period 1348-1349 was the onset of the pandemic Black Death (bubonic plague) in England. This lasted until about 1351, with further outbreaks over the next thirty years. By 1400 the population of England had fallen to 2.25 million. As a result of the plague the economic balance of power shifted away from land-owners to tenants and labourers. The chronic depopulation knocked away the main prop of economic feudalism, hereditary serfdom. Masses of serfs liberated themselves, fleeing from manors to compete in an open labour market in which wages were soaring. The withering of serfdom ended economic feudalism. The following decades saw instead the rise of relatively wealthy farming families who founded dynasties of yeoman and minor gentlemen. English began to take over from French as the daily language. One aspect of this change was the influx of around 65,000 immigrants from North West Europe between 1330 and 1550 due to labour shortages caused by the Black Death.

In 1377, 1379 and 1380 a poll tax was imposed to fund wars with France, placing intolerable burdens on the poorest. In the South-East of England this led to the Peasant’s Revolt, but there was no similar impact further north. In 1379 the Unicorn Hotel in Ripon opened. Poll tax returns show that there were three “brewsters” (probably women) around the Market Place, one of which was the Unicorn, while there were 38 cloth-workers and 25 leather-workers amongst the 583 tax-payers of Ripon, Bondgate and

Aismunderby. Other trades included innkeepers, smiths, drapers, shoemakers, glovers, skinners, tanners, mercers, grocers, butchers and fishermen. The overall population of the area was probably some 1,250.

By 1391 Thorpe Prebend House was being used as a bell foundry. Between 1396 and 1397 the central spire of the Ripon church rebuilt. 1398 saw poor harvests in the Ripon area and this was repeated in 1400-1401. These years also saw the accession of King Henry IV – the first King of England to speak English as his first language. In 1405 Ripon became the residence of the Court, when King Henry IV was driven from Westminster by the plague. Further such epidemics took place in the years 1429, 1436, 1459, 1467, 1471, 1483 and 1505-1506.

The discipline of the church staff remained exceedingly lax. Church music was neglected; the mass was not said regularly in the lady-chapel; the inferior clergy did not study for their examinations and wore daggers in the choir; they and the vicars frequented taverns and absented themselves without leave. The canons did not attend church in their habits, walked about the church during divine service and the clergy generally indulged in field sports. In 1453 the sacrist was accused of neglecting his duty of ringing the bells at proper times, water was not provided for the lavatories and the clock was not properly kept. In 1450 the south-east corner of the central tower of the Ripon church gave way. The fabric of the church was in such a poor state that services had to be performed in an adjoining chapel.

More locally, in 1472 a woman called Alianor Percival farmed the small tithes of Thorpe, paying four shillings annually for the privilege and in 1484 an annual legacy of a bushel of corn was left in his will to St Ann’s Hospital (or Maison Dieu) in Ripon by Robert Horsman of Thorpe.

By the early 1500s stone from Quarry Moor was used for rebuilding work on Ripon Cathedral. In 1511 Canon Residentiary Andrew Newman made a tour of inspection of the prebendal houses (including Thorpe) and found “terrible ruinosities” and warned each prebendary to put his buildings in good repair.

Tudors and Stuarts

Early in Henry VIII’s reign the textile industry in Ripon collapsed – probably because of a heavily manoralised economy, firmly controlled by the Archbishop’s feudal attitude, which did not offer the freedom necessary for larger-scale industrial expansion. Yet livestock – cattle and horses, flourished. The period 1536 to 1540 saw the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1537 Marmaduke Bradley, last prebendary Canon of Thorpe, became Abbot of Fountains Abbey by offering the royal commissioners 600 marks for the abbacy in order to help close it down during the dissolution of the monasteries. In this way he manipulated his election to the abbacy and removed his predecessor Abbot William Thirsk. 1538 was marked by attacks on religious relics and the shrine of St Wilfred was destroyed. In 1539 Fountains Abbey was closed and Marmaduke Bradley then returned to his prebendal house (Thorpe Prebend House) with a comfortable Abbot’s pension of £100 a year. This was the largest pension of any former Cistercian abbot in the country and enabled him to enjoy a very high standard of living. Between the years 1544 and 1546 Marmaduke Bradley was the real power in Ripon as sole residentiary (member of the clergy). In 1547 he retired to become Master of the Hospital of St Mary Magdalen, before dying in 1553. Ripon Minster Chapter or college of Canons (including prebends) was dissolved by King Edward VI during the Protestant Reformation and most of its wealth

confiscated and appropriated by the Crown . The old system of sanctuary died out. The Minster became a mere parish church staffed by five poorly-paid and ill-educated vicars, at least one of whom was eventually arraigned for “papist practices”. From 1547 the Archbishop of York and the Canons of the Cathedral had their land in and around Ripon confiscated and sold to laymen.

The year 1569 saw the Rising of the North – a revolt by Catholic rebels led by the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland against Queen Elizabeth I and Protestantism, with the aim of restoring freedom of worship for Catholics. The aim was to replace Queen Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary Queen of Scots, to maintain the freedom to practice their Catholic faith and to defy attempts by the state to suppress it in favour of Protestantism. Sir Thomas de Markenfield was a central figure in the Rising and a large contingent gathered in the courtyard of Markenfield Hall under the banner of the five wounds of Christ. The leaders heard Mass for the last time in the chapel and rode to Ripon before heading towards London. The Rising was routed and Sir Thomas was forced to flee to the Low Countries where he survived in ever-increasing poverty. Markenfield was confiscated and granted to Thomas Egerton, Master of the Rolls. Egerton never made Markenfield his principal residence and it devolved to a rented farmhouse. Mary Queen of Scots probably lodged at Thorpe Prebend House on her transfer from Bolton Castle to Tutbury. In 1570 three hundred Rising of the North rebels were hanged at Gallows Hill, Ripon. The Church suffered much damage from Queen Elizabeth’s soldiers, who stripped the lead from the roof. The Minster was staffed by curates who were resistant to change. In 1570 one of them was ordered to do penance and fined by the Court of High commission at York for “hearing mass in rebellion time and other papistical service”. Even in 1580 the Court of High Commission revealed that the people of Ripon still clung to the old (Roman Catholic) religion. The clergy were unclerical in dress and lax in their performance of the reformed services, which the parishioners showed an unwillingness to attend. The old fasts and festivals were not wholly given up. Gradually, however, the Elizabethan settlement took hold and a new generation of clergy, brought up on the Book of Common Prayer, took the new Anglicanism to the people. 1589 saw Hollin Close Hall first recorded in the Ripon Cathedral Register and in 1599 the lease of the property of the former prebend of Thorpe (Thorpe Prebend House) was made to Robert Dawson

In 1604 the Minster, with a Dean and Chapter was reconstituted by King James I’s Charter of Restoration. Following this control of fairs and markets and the collection of dues passed increasingly to Ripon Corporation (which from 1611 held its’ meetings in the Unicorn Hotel) and to its’ officers. In 1609 Thorpe Prebend House was rebuilt as a Jacobean town house with projecting wings and in 1617 King James 1 stayed overnight there. The Minster Chapter manorial land provided the income of Thorpe Prebend House. The Ripon workhouse was located within the Archbishop’s manor-house – where the Old Court House now stands. Meanwhile much of the surrounding countryside was waste or moorland and it shared its’ common land with the commons of Ripon. An area known as “Claypitts” is mentioned in late seventeenth century deeds covering the districts of Thorpe and Bondgate, which suggests that the area was being exploited for its resources of clay and sand, as well as for seasonal pasture.

In 1625-1626 another severe outbreak of the plague in Ripon prevented country folk in the surrounding villages from approaching the Minster and obliged them to have their children baptised in the fields. The vicars’ bedern was demolished around this time. In 1633 Ripon was visited by King Charles I on his way to his coronation as King of Scotland in Edinburgh. An affray took place in Ripon Market Place during the Civil War and in 1643 took place the Battle of Ripon. Sir Thomas

Mauleverer, a Parliamentary officer, captured Ripon and cut off one of the main routes linking the Royalist strongholds in the Dales to the city of York. His soldiers broke into the Minster and shattered the glass in the east window. Later, in 1647 Charles 1 spent two nights as a prisoner in Ripon and a year later Oliver Cromwell stayed overnight at the Unicorn Hotel on his way to Preston. He also stayed overnight at the Unicorn Hotel in 1651 on his way to Worcester. In 1649 the manorial rights of Ripon were sold to Lord Fairfax and Hollin Close Hall passed to the family of Sir William Thomson. In 1660 a storm demolished the central spire of Ripon Minster and over the next few years the remaining spires were removed for safety reasons. 1664 saw the first recorded horse race meeting at Bondgate Green. In 1689 Aismunderby mediaeval village was abandoned. The remains of earthen ditches and cobblestone foundations can still be seen around a field called Chapel Garths. By the late 17th century the Aislabies of Studley Royal took control of local voting rights in elections from the Archbishops of York (previously lords of the manor) and their MPs continued to represent a closed agricultural community. Hollin Close Hall reconstructed for Sir William Thomson. The Rotary Way hospital was demolished and a new almshouse or hospital built on the west side of the road. At this time Ripon was famous for its’ horse fairs, held in what is now North Street. Around 1700 the earliest part of Littlethorpe Manor was completed.

Agriculture, enclosure and industry

In the 18th century there was an economic transformation of the rural district from one entirely based upon agriculture to one partially dependent on rural industries at the fringes of the Industrial Revolution. The area between Littlethorpe and Bishop Monkton remained un-enclosed and poorly-drained moorland until at least the mid-eighteenth century. In 1713 plans were put in hand for a racecourse to be laid out on Ripon High Common (now Whitcliffe Lane) and an annual race meeting was held. In 1719 ownership of Hollin Close Hall passed to John Wood of Copmanthorpe.

By the early 1700s the common land ownership system of the mediaeval ridge and furrow cultivation began to give way as some individuals became wealthier and acquired more land and employed others to work it for them. This led to a move to identify land areas, and this can be seen by the large number of boundary stones (32) laid down to clarify ownership of land and reduce disputes. 1723 saw the first horse race for female jockeys in the UK held at Ripon Racecourse. Mrs Aislabie of Studley Royal was criticised for sponsoring an early ladies horse race in which

“nine of that sex rid astride, dressed in drawers, waistcoats and jockey caps, their shapes transparent, and a vast concourse to see them”.

much to the consternation of the local worthies.

In 1736 an early proposal was developed for a canal linking Ripon with the River Ure, but nothing came of it at that time. In 1742 deeds of covenant were drawn up relating to the division of Littlethorpe Moor and in 1744 agreement reached between John Ingilby, William Danby and others for the enclosure of the common fields of Littlethorpe. This was an early part of the enclosure process. A series of parliamentary “Inclosure Acts” enclosed all remaining pasture commons or “wastes” – effectively privatising them and dividing them up. Prior to enclosure the rights to use land was shared between the landowners and the common people who had the “common right” to graze their cattle, sheep, pigs and geese and to gather fuel and berries when crops and hay were not being

grown. Enclosures were conducted by agreement among landlords (but not necessarily their tenants). Enclosed land would demand higher rents than unenclosed, so landlords had an economic stake in enclosure, even if they did not farm the enclosed land directly. Following enclosure and drainage, stock farming became the dominant form of land use. The Act of Parliament concerned was entitled:-

“An Act for extinguishing a Right of Common, claimed by and belonging to the Owners and Proprieters of ancient Burgages and Tenements in Ripon, Littlethorpe and Bondgate in the County of York and for settling and providing an Equivalent for the said Common Right”

As the poet Oliver Goldsmith said in his poem “The Deserted Village (1770)

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,Where wealth accumulates, and men decay:Princes or lords may flourish, or may fade;A breath can make them, as a breath has made;But a bold peasantry, the country’s pride,When once destroyed, can never be supplied.A time there was, ere England’s griefs began,Where every rood of ground maintained its man;For him light labour spread her wholesome store;Just gave what life required, but gave no more;His best companions, innocence and health;And his best riches, ignorance of wealth.But times are altered, trade’s unfeeling trainUsurp the land, and dispossess the swain:Along the lawn, where scattered hamlets rose,Unwieldy wealth and cumbrous pomp repose;And every want to luxury allied,And every pang that folly pays to pride.Those gentle hours, that plenty bade to bloom:Those calm desires, that asked but little room,Those healthful sports, that graced the peaceful scene,Lived in each look, and brightened all the green;These, far departing seek a kinder shore,And rural mirth and manners are no more.”

Or as another rhyme of the time said:-

“They hang the man, and flog the womanThat steals the goose from off the common.But let the greater villain looseThat steals the common from the goose” (Anon)

The whole process has been described as “the most scandalous example of privatisation inBritish history” (Krznaric, 2011) as, between 1760 and 1837 some 7 million acres of land which had previously been publicly-owned was converted to profitable private agricultural use.

The land at Quarry Moor was never enclosed because of the uneven surfaces, due to quarrying activity.

Subsequently, Littlethorpe tended to become a “closed” rather than an “open” parish. Open parishes were bustling places with a growing population, many landowners, tenants and a diverse economy. Closed parishes were owned by one or a few landowners, who did not welcome incomers. Such places tended to become under-populated, with slow or stagnant economies. Landowners did not want open villages on their doorsteps with large and rowdy populations and many alehouses – the haunts, it was believed, of poor labourers, ruffians and political dissenters. Moreover, claimants for poor relief were ultimately paid by the landowners of the parish, so it was in no-one’s interest to own land in open parishes, where the numerous population would have had its’ share of the old, the sick and pregnant mothers – all of whom were at liberty to claim relief.

The attitudes behind this are well-expressed in Bernard Mandeville’s “The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Public Benefits” (1714):

“To make the Society Happy and People Easy under the meanest Circumstances, it is requisite that great numbers of them should be Ignorant as well as Poor, Knowledge both enlarges and multiplies our Desires..... The Welfare and Felicity therefore of every State and Kingdom require that the Knowledge of the Working Poor should be confin’d within the Verge of their Occupations and never extended (as to things visible) beyond what relates to their Calling. The more a Shepherd, a Plowman or any other Peasant knows of the World, and the things that are Foreign to his Labour or Employment, the less fit he’ll be to go through the Fatigues and Hardships of it with Chearfulness and Content.”

By the Mid-1700s the walled garden at Littlethorpe Manor was completed, using bricks from Littlethorpe brickworks. In 1750 across the four million acres of Yorkshire the entire population was only about 500,000. There were no towns of any size. Leeds, with a population of 17,000 was a collection of mean streets clustering about an old bridge. Bradford was no more than a village of three streets closely packed in a hollow in the hills. Scarborough was a collection of fishermen’s cottages nestling together under the protection of a ruinous castle. Harrogate was a hamlet of nondescript buildings, half-inns, half-farmsteads which stood about a mineral spring in the middle of a waste. Market towns like Ripon, still semi-medieval in appearance, were little more than meeting-places for husbandmen and hucksters. There was little noise of machinery and little movement in the land. People stayed, from birth to death, where fate had set them down. However, things were changing. From 1752 the Ripon to Harrogate Road (now the A61) was made a turnpike linking Ripon to Leeds through Harrogate and benefiting the two major coaching inns in Ripon – the Unicorn and the Black Bull. Around this time Ripon Corporation took the view that the town could benefit greatly from a canal.

In 1761 Markenfield Hall was bought by lawyer and MP Fletcher Norton who went on to become Solicitor-General and, after being knighted, the Speaker of the House of Commons. He never lived in the Hall, preferring Grantley Hall. When elevated to the peerage he took the title Lord Grantley of Markenfield. In 1764 some people in Ripon jailed “upon suspicion of corresponding with Prince Charles Edward Stuart” (Bonny Prince Charlie)

In September 1766 Mayor Christopher Braithwaite of Ripon convened a meeting at the York Minster Inn (now the site of Boots the Chemist) to test support for a “navigation” - the canal project to allow passage from York via the Ouse and the Ure to Ripon - and to begin the process for securing the necessary Act of Parliament. A committee of the Mayor, three aldermen and three councillors was appointed to take matters forward. The forty-two year-old John Smeaton, builder of the Eddystone Lighthouse, was invited to draw up the technical plans and related costings for a five-lock structure on the 8 miles of the River Ure and the 2.5 miles of the Ripon Canal itself. The original estimated cost was £8,333. The proposal and costings were accepted at a subsequent meeting (October, 1766) at the Royal Oak in Kirkgate. Subsequently £15,000 was raised by public subscription. Following a petition made to Parliament an Act was passed in 1767 to make the River Ure navigable to above Ox Close, with a canal from there to Ripon and received Royal Assent. The Act established Commissioners who could borrow money in order to fund the development, although the amount of money to be borrowed was not regulated by the Act. The works were designed to allow the passage of keels along the waterway which were 58 x 14.5 feet (18 x 4.4 metres).

In 1769 building work commenced on the construction of the Ripon Canal, beginning with the lower sections (Milby lock and cut) and with much of it under the direction of Smeaton’s assistant, William Jessop, with final responsibility lying with the Ure Navigation Commissioners. The engineer overseeing the day-to-day operations was John Smith and a masonry contractor from Halifax called Joshua Wilson was also employed. Much of the stone for the locks came from quarries at Burton Leonard and South Stainley. One of the first cast-iron bridges in the country was built over the canalised section of the waterway to carry the Great North Road to Boroughbridge. The canal was fed with water from a feeder which left the Rivers Laver and Skell in Ripon. The early Spring of 1773 was the likely date for the opening of the Ripon Canal running ten miles from the centre of Ripon to Swale Nab where the Ure and the Swale meet to form the Ouse and linking Ripon via the Ouse to York (1777) and then to Hull (also 1777). The project went well over budget, the eventual final cost being £16, 400. Coal and timber were the main cargoes into Ripon (being distributed to other towns in North Yorkshire) on ships of 30 tons burthen, as well as flax for the Knaresborough linen industry. Lead from Nidderdale, bricks, sand, gravel and agricultural produce (butter and cheese) were carried south. Tolls were levied and subsequently trade on the canal grew steadily.

Yet while the canal came into operation Parliament also passed the General Turnpike Act aimed at the promotion and easier regulation of already existing turnpike trusts which were spreading as towns struggled to address the generally dreadful state of local roads. It was thought that if money was raised to employ a surveyor and to improve the roads, the customary rates and services would then be enough for their maintenance, and the original outlay could be repaid by tolls levied at various turnpike gates. A patchwork of turnpike trusts grew to cover the whole country, each working on its own section of road. As well as improving the surface, width and drainage of the road, embankments, cuttings and bridges were built to level the gradient and make it easier for horses to pull vehicles. The turnpike roads were best-suited to carrying lighter, more manufactured goods – and people, while the new canals were more efficient at transporting heavy goods on horse-drawn barges.

There were thirty-six public houses at this time in Ripon and in 1774 Ripon Liberty justices announced that they intended to refuse licences to publicans permitting “cock-matches, plays or any interludes”. Despite that, eleven years later in 1785 the number of public houses had risen to fifty-four and in 1792 a theatre was opened in Ripon. In 1777 Allhallows Hall, Allhallowgate, Ripon, was donated by John Aislabie for a workhouse, with a population of 30 inmates..

More locally, in 1788 Roger Pickering built the original Thorpe Lodge and in 1796 there was a major gypsum-related collapse in Littlethorpe.

Between 1799 and 1801 Ripon Corporation met in the Unicorn Hotel while the new Town Hall was under construction. It was also used by the Turnpike Trustees and by local magistrates to issue alehouse licences and swear-in army recruits, as well as holding their Quarter Sessions dinner. The new Town Hall was opened in 1801 at a time that the number of public houses had fallen to forty-one. The industrial Revolution essentially bypassed Ripon and it remained an agricultural centre.

19th Century

Early in the 19th century Thorpe Lodge and Littlethorpe Manor were rebuilt. In 1806 Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson (who was to play an important part in the development of Littlethorpe) was born at Hanlith Hall, Kirkby Malham near Skipton, the sixth of seven children. That year saw the population of Ripon as 3,211. 1815 saw the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Britain emerged with a crushing National Debt and high taxes. A sixth of Britain’s adult men had served in the army or navy and now the roads were full of wandering ex-soldiers. On the land, farmers faced new taxes on everything from hops and barley to horses and sheepdogs. The price of wheat crashed; the gentry found loans and mortgages hard to repay; bankers pressed for money landowners pressed for rents; shopkeepers pressed for payment. To aid farmers, the first of the Corn Laws was passed, banning the import of corn until home-grown wheat reached 80 shillings a quarter. As a result, the price of bread rocketed and the poor starved.

1816 was known as “The year without a summer” – the largest volcanic eruption for over a thousand years from Mount Tambora in what is now Indonesia swept volumes of ash into the upper atmosphere and caused a prolonged winter across the northern hemisphere. There were floods in spring and frosts in July. In the autumn, fields lay un-harvested, the potato crop failed and sheep died in their thousands. The winter that followed was exceptionally cruel.

In 1817 Francis Cooper, a farmer of Ripley, had his horse stolen from his property at Thorpe Lodge and in 1819 Robert Waddilove, eldest son of Rev. William J. Waddilove, Canon of the Minster, born.

By 1820 the Ripon Canal was in serious financial trouble, despite the fact that Britain’s canal network was then at its peak. The American War of Independence (1775-1783) and the Napoleonic Wars (1793-1815) had led to local economic difficulties and inflation – otherwise the Canal probably would have earned useful dividends for its promoters. Running costs and maintenance absorbed nearly all revenue. The Commissioners had failed to repay the original loans and substantial arrears of interest payments (some £11,450) had accrued on them. The original Commissioners had also failed to nominate any successors. Parliament intervened (at the instigation of the Mayor and Corporation of Ripon) and a new Company (“the Company of Proprietors of the River Ure Navigation to Ripon”) was formed by a group of creditors to run the Ure Navigation. They obtained a second Act of Parliament

on 23rd June which gave them powers to raise £34,000 by the issuing of shares, with an extra £3,400 if needed. They were required to spend £3,000 on repairs within 5 years of the Act being passed. More capital was thus raised and various improvements carried out between 1820 and 1825.

In the census of 1821 the population of Whitcliffe-with-Thorpe was 157, Bishop Monkton was 473 and that of Ripon was between 3,000 and 6,000. Around this time the main part of Thorpe Lodge was built and in 1822 was the rented residence of Rev. William J. Waddilove, educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge and a Canon of Ripon Minster, his father having been Dean. The following year Francis Cooper, owner of Thorpe Lodge advertised it for sale or let as the family prepared to move to Manchester.

The 1820s were the Golden Age of stagecoach travel. The Unicorn Hotel in Ripon serviced the Telegraph coach running between Newcastle and London (a 36-hour journey) and the Royal Mail from Glasgow to London. More local services included the Tally-Ho and the Royal Union between Ripon and Leeds. Other coaches such as the Highflyer, the Courier and the Prince Albert all used these services. In 1829 the Royal Union coach was overthrown near Quarry Moor.

Social change came on apace. In 1824 the Vagrancy Act criminalised the state of being indigent – begging and sleeping out without visible means of support were made criminal acts. In 1825 seventy banks suspended payment in a bank scare panic. Almost all of them repaid their customers over the next four years. The number of public houses in Ripon had shrunk to thirty-six. Horse racing ceased with the enclosure of Ripon High Common

In 1827 Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley appointed as Canon-Residentiary at Ripon Minster. In 1829 the Leeds Intelligencer newspaper carried this story on 12th March.

“An Absconder In Littlethorpe”

“Absconded from Littlethorpe Mark Hornby (alias Kirby) – leaving wife and family chargeable tothe township. Stands six foot high; with black hair, curled at the front, dark brown eyes andfresh colour in the face. Wearing a fustian jacket, white worsted breeches, blackwaistcoat, yellow kerseymere gaiters, bound with black leather, with strong half-boots.May be dressed in blue frock-coat, with waistcoat striped in orange and green or scarlet-striped. Walks upright – a good-looking man of thirty. Left his house and wife in thecompany of another man’s wife and young child by the York coach from Ripon and took thepacket from thence to Hull. She is a middle-aged woman, not very stout, but fresh-colouredin the face and dressed in a plain scarlet worsted gown, blue cotton shawl, bordered withyellow and green, and with a leghorn bonnet.”

That same year Rev. Pennyman Worsley became Rector of Little Ponton, Lincolnshire, succeeding his father, Rev. Ralph Worsley.

The 1830s saw increased population and inequality of income and the rise of evangelical morality helped to create a view that the poor were poor not because of misfortune, or because wages were too low, but because they were drunken and lazy, probably immoral and dissolute, and no doubt rogues and thieves to boot. In 1830 the Beer Act passed by Parliament – it removed all tax on beer in order to divert people from drinking gin. Within a year 31,000 new pubs were built across the UK.

Between 1830 and 1832 a terrible cholera epidemic spread throughout the UK, killing more than 30,000 people. In 1830 gas street lighting was introduced in Ripon.

In Littlethorpe in 1831 a clay works was founded by James Foxton, a Ripon builder, due to a reserve of fine-quality clay, although earlier working may date from the mediaeval period. Initially the site was predominantly concerned with the production of bricks and tiles for the Foxton’s family building business. The original site was close to St Helen’s Gutter. That same year Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson’s mother died, leaving her (aged 25) and her sister to look after their father.

In 1832 the Great Reform Act was passed, which took some of the power away from the landed gentry and passed it into the hands of the rising commercial and manufacturing interest. The franchise was enlarged somewhat and Parliamentary representation restructured to shift the balance of electoral power away from underpopulated rural areas and towards the new cities. The Whig (liberal) supporters of reform were based in the Black Bull Hotel (now So Bar & Eats) and the Tories (opposed to reform) at the Unicorn Hotel.

In 1833 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire and the first Factory Act put limits to child labour. However, in 1834 the Poor Law Amendment Act established a system in which outdoor relief (money and food supplemented sometimes by clothes, shoes and assistance in finding apprenticeships for children) was first reduced and then ultimately abolished almost entirely. Poor Law Guardians were elected by ratepayers who had a vested interest in keeping expenditure down. The idea of making workhouses less desirable became central and they were made as prison-like as possible. Families were separated – men and women living apart and all forced to undertake grinding, repetitive and meaningless work to discourage people from entering the workhouse. No personal possessions were allowed and people were dressed in deliberately unattractive uniforms. They had to ask permission to leave the premises and their food was of the coarsest kind and insufficient. The aim was to make them unhappy and to make the better-off despise them. In effect, it criminalised poverty.

Captain James Maister, late of the Rifle Brigade, and son of the Irishman Lieutenant- General Maister, owner of Littlethorpe Manor died aged 30 at the Manor in 1834. The following year further additions were made to Littlethorpe Manor. General Maister was Colonel of the 86 th Regiment, the Duke of Wellington’s Peninsula Officer, and he creating the Georgian-style manor as seen today. Between 1839 and 1843 Maister was Lieutenant-General commanding British troops in the Windward and Leeward Islands in the West Indies, based in Barbados.

Also in 1834 the pottery arm of the Foxton’s business began producing brown earthenware. Coal was originally supplied to the site via canal locks near Ox Close. In 1836 Ripon Minster became a Cathedral – the focal point of the Diocese of Ripon & Leeds – the first new diocese to be established since the Reformation. The number of prebenderies was reduced to four, but with a large number of honorary canons, including Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley. In 1837 horse racing began again with a two day meeting at a new course north of the River Ure. The same year saw the passing of the Municipal Reform Act by which Ripon was created a Bishopric and links with the Archbishop of York were finally broken.

In 1838 further improvements were made to the Ripon Canal in order to allow larger boats to reach Ripon. As a result, payloads increased from 30 tonnes in 1822 to 70 tonnes in the 1840s, when the canal could accommodate boats drawing 4.5 feet (1.4 metres) all the way to Ripon. It was never able to handle the Humber sloops, with their width of 15.8 feet (4.8 metres) and draught of 6.5 feet (2 metres) which ran as far as Boroughbridge. However, by the late 1830s canal prices had had to fall as a result of competition from the railways. The 1840s (especially 1844-45) saw a railway boom, but the decade 1840-1850 was also known as the “Hungry Forties” – a time of economic uncertainty, drastic shortages of food and social conflict. Already in 1839 West Riding Chartists had staged a meeting in Ripon.

In 1840 Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson’s father died. She was aged 34. 4th January 1841 saw the opening of the Darlington to York railway (an alternative way to bring coal from the Durham coalfields south to York). Despite this, the Aire & Calder Canal were shipping some 26,931 tonnes of coal per year along the Ure Navigation at the time and the Company of Proprietors were making profits of £886 on an income of £2,013. Some of this traffic stopped at Boroughbridge on the River Ure, but a good proportion passed along the canal to Ripon. However, the opening of the railway seriously affected coal traffic on the canal over the following years. In 1842 James Foxton died (aged 75) with no immediate successor to take over the brick, tile and pottery works. In 1842 Poor Law funds in Leeds ran out and only an appeal that raised £6,000 had kept people fed the previous winter. The number of families helped by the Workhouse Board had doubled since 1838 and it was estimated in the first quarter of 1842 that 20% of the total Leeds population of 80,000 was dependent on the workhouse, with the cost of outdoor relief 23% higher than a year earlier.

In 1844 a number of Leeds citizens formed the Leeds and Thirsk Railway Company and decided to prepare a Parliamentary Bill for a railway line from Leeds through Ripon to Thirsk. In order to gain local support for their plans in and around Ripon and so lessen the risk of Parliamentary opposition, they agreed to purchase the Ure Navigation. In the following year the sale of Ure Navigation was agreed by the two Boards and the railway company’s shareholders endorsed the decision in January. An Act of Parliament was passed in July to authorise the railway. The Act required the railway company to keep the Navigation open and in good order. The Mayor and Corporation of Ripon were also the Trustees of the estates of many of the original Canal Commissioners and thus owed a duty to their heirs. However, when the railway came upon the scene the Ripon aim was to get rid of the Navigation and get the railway company to take it over. Finally in January of 1846 the Ure Navigation was sold to the Leeds & Thirsk Railway Company for £34,577, although only £16,297 was paid in cash. While this was going on the Ripon Cathedral Chapter Clerk wrote to the solicitor for the Leeds & Thirsk Railway concerning compensation for loss of tithe income caused by construction of the railway! By March of 1847 construction of the railway line reached Ripon when the first pile of the railway viaduct was driven into the bed of the Ure. The Minster bells were rung and there was great rejoicing. Further work followed – the raising of embankments, the building of bridges and abutments and the laying of track. Stone from Quarry Moor was used as ballast.

In this year Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson was one of the subscribers to the publication of “The Lamp in The Wilderness: As Applicable To Early British History And Explicable By The Holy Scriptures” by Rev. William Waddilove of Thorpe Lodge, former Canon of Ripon Cathedral and Chaplain to the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh.

1848 saw the opening of the extension of the railway line from Thirsk to Ripon. The first passenger train ran on 31st May. By September the Ripon to Weeton stretch of line (running through Littlethorpe) was also open. Coal for the brick, tile and pottery works could now be supplied by rail, rather than the Canal, which went into steady decline, the coal trade being particularly affected by the new competition. Additionally, with the advent of the railway, the decline of coach travel was swift and catastrophic. That same year Charlotte Helina Worsley, first wife of Rev. Pennyman Worsley, gave birth to a son, whilst under the influence of chloroform.

By 1849 the railway line extended from Weeton to Leeds. A considerable falling-off of income from the Ure Navigation was reported at the half-yearly meeting of the Leeds and Thirsk Railway Company, in consequence of the opening of the railway – principally from mineral traffic transferring from canal to railway. Completion of the line allowed it to be used as an alternative to the main LNER line when repairs or maintenance were necessary. By 1850, with the economic boom received by the opening of the Leeds & Thirsk Railway and the repeal of the brick tax, the Foxton family name was again associated with the brick, tile and pottery site, in the form of James & Thomas Foxton, grandsons of James Foxton, the site’s founder. The majority of labourers at the site continued to commute daily from Ripon and Bishop Monkton.

The census of 1851 showed that the population of Ripon was 6,160. There were 39 public houses – one for every 158 inhabitants. By this time half the population of Britain now lived in cities and towns.

A rota of fairs ran throughout the year in Ripon, mostly for horses, sheep and cattle, although there was also a wool fair in the Old Market Place in June.

1851 to 1867 was the “High Victorian” period of wealth, confidence, domestic peace and national pride. A local manifestation of this was when in 1851 Miss Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson, now aged 45 who lived at Littlethorpe Grange with her unmarried sister, Jane Frances Serjeantson, purchased land from the newly renamed Leeds Northern Rail Company (formerly the Leeds & Thirsk Railway Company and later to merge to form the North Eastern Railway Company) for the sum of £15 for the construction of a School for the village. Such an initiative was extremely radical for the times. Evidence of prevailing attitudes to education include the thoughts of a JP in 1807:-

“It is doubtless desirable that the poor should be generally instructed in reading, if it were only for the best of purposes – that they may read the Scriptures. As to writing and arithmetic, it may be apprehended that such a degree of knowledge would produce in them a disrelish for the laborious occupations of life”

and of Davies Giddy, a Tory MP during a debate on the Parochial Schools Bill in the same year:-

“However specious in theory the project might be of giving education to the labouring classes of the poor, it would, in effect, be found to be prejudicial to their morals and happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to which their rank in society had destined them; instead of teaching them the virtue of subordination, it would render them fractious and refractory, as is evident in the manufacturing counties; it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books and publications against Christianity; it would render them insolent to their superiors; and in a few years, the result would be that the legislature would find it necessary to direct the strong arm of power

towards them and to furnish the executive magistrates with more vigorous powers than are now in force. Besides, if this Bill were to pass into law, it would go to burthen the country with a most enormous and incalculable expense, and to load the industrious orders with still heavier imposts.”

This was also the year of the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park and a time of great confidence. Britain owned half the ocean-going ships in the world and 50% of the world’s railways. It produced five times as much iron as the USA and ten times as much as Germany. A religious census showed that out of a total number of worshippers in the Ripon registration district 45.7% were Church of England, 28.5% were Wesleyan Methodists, 7.9% were Primitive Methodists, 7.5% were “other” Methodists, 3.8% were Roman Catholics and 6.5% were “other”.

1852 saw the establishment of the Ripon Poor Law Union serving 32 townships and in 1854 a new workhouse in Ripon, on the site of the old, was built at a cost of £5,000.

Between 1852 and 1868 Charles Dodgson (better know as Lewis Carroll) stayed in Ripon at the Old Hall next to the cathedral and then at the now-demolished Residence near the cathedral’s east end, while his father served his annual thirteen week stint as Residentiary Canon every year between January and April. This was an annual holiday from his studies and later his job at Oxford University. He walked some twenty miles a day visiting and photographing friends, including General Maister at Littlethorpe Manor.

In 1854 a trusteeship was set up which allowed for the hiring and firing of a schoolmaster or schoolmistress at Littlethorpe School who must be:-

“pious, Protestant and teach catechism, reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar and sewing”.

The duty of the school was to:-

“educate children and poor persons in the township of Whitcliffe-with-Thorpe, so long as the child attends within three miles distance or less”.

Scriptures were to be read daily in school. Trustees were appointed to ensure that the school fulfilled its charter. The original trustees were Miss Serjeantson, her sister Jane, the Rev. George Frederick Williamson and the Right Rev. Charles Thomas Longley, Bishop of Ripon. If the school failed or closed, the property was to revert to Miss Serjeantson. The School was probably therefore a voluntary school run in connection with a religious body (most likely the National Society for Promoting the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church – or the National Society for short) and so pre-dates State-provided elementary (primary) education. The National Society was founded in 1811 and was dedicated to education in the four “Rs” – reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and religion. The purpose of such schools was not to equip the children of the “labouring classes” for social mobility, but rather to enable them to be content with their station in life and “render them useful and respectable members of society”. The Church of England had resisted early attempts for the state to provide secular education. Learning would have been via the monitorial system and by rote, the teacher’s time largely spent in keeping order. There would have been little continuity of attendance by pupils, with regular attendance being confined to the winter months.

Also in this year the Leeds Northern Railway Company became part of the North Eastern Railway Company, the Ure Navigation became neglected, with lack of dredging resulting in boats having to be loaded with less cargo and Charlotte Helina Worsley, first wife of Rev. Pennyman Worsley, died.

In 1856 additional school land was purchased by Miss Serjeantson (now aged 50) for the sum of £18, 9 shillings and 7 pence from the North Eastern Railway Company, in order to provide accommodation for a schoolmaster or schoolmistress. On a map this year the Pinfold (an enclosure for stray cattle) was – administered by a “Pinder” or “Pindar” on behalf of the township and funded by fines meted out to individuals whose cattle had wandered.

The years 1857 to1859 saw a world-wide economic crisis marked by collapsing markets. Locally (in 1857) the brick, tile and pottery works were in the hands of James and Thomas Foxton, grandsons of the founder, and employed eighteen hands. Enclosure records for the area in 1858 show “Littlethorpe Oxclose” – land owned and purchased from a number of others by Lord Grantley and Earl de Grey, and “Littlethorpe Green” – described as “waste” and close to the pinfold.

Nationally the Divorce Court was instituted. Previously only four women in the history of England had ever obtained a divorce – it had been a rich man’s luxury, requiring an arduous tour through the Ecclesiastical Courts, an action in the court of common law to recover damages against a wife’s lover, and, finally, an Act of Parliament that permitted a man to remarry. For the first time women could petition for divorce, although they needed more stringent grounds than men. Husbands could divorce adulterous wives, but wives needed to prove adultery plus one of a number of grievous injuries – incest, bigamy, sodomy, extreme cruelty or desertion for longer than three years.

In 1860 Miss Serjeanston’s sister Jane Frances died, aged 56. Carolyn was 54. Miss Serjeantson married Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley, a Canon-Residentiary of Ripon Cathedral and Rector of Little Ponton near Grantham in Lincolnshire in a ceremony at St Lambert’s Church, Bedale. He had at least 4 children from his previous marriage. In that same year Miss Serjeantson set up the Serjeantson Educational Foundation to provide financial assistance to Littlethorpe children and to promote “the education, including social and physical training of boys and girls of the poorer classes”. Latterly the Foundation’s monies were used to provide grants to pay for school uniforms for Littlethorpe pupils attending Ripon Grammar School. The last such grant was paid in 1988.

Also in 1860 Robert Darby Oxley of Thorpe Lodge was briefly an owner of a brick and tile works on Pottery Lane. There was also a brief upturn in Ripon Canal traffic at this time.

The 1861 census revealed that the population of Ripon 6,172. Carolyn Susanna Worsley and her husband, Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley, were living at St Mary’s Gate, next to the current Prison and Police Museum, with seven servants.

1865 saw a horse racing course laid out off Whitcliffe Lane but this proved to be too dangerous. The Representation of the People Act of 1867 meant that the franchise was extended to all male householders (2.5 million people), effectively giving the vote to the working classes for the first time.During the 1860s and 1870s a great number of fine houses were built as Littlethorpe & Sharow became fashionable places for the wealthy of Ripon to live. Sundry wealthy inhabitants of Littlethorpe used the railway to commute to Leeds and Bradford. Throughout the 1860s and 1870s there was no provision for Anglican worship in Littlethorpe and those wanting to attend church either had to travel into Ripon or attend divine service conducted in the School.

The 1870s saw a further decline in Ripon Canal traffic. The Elementary Education Act of 1870 (the Forster Act) required the provision of elementary education for children aged 5-13 years old, with local discretion such as early leaving in agricultural areas. Local School Boards could compel attendance and could fine parents of children who did not attend, with certain exemptions. In practice, many Boards did not use this power. This began a growing system of state elementary education intended for the lower classes.

In 1871 Littlethorpe Potteries were at their peak, employing twenty-two workers. In the census of that year Carolyn Susanna Worsley and her husband Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley were living at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, with 3 daughters, 1 niece and 4 servants, including a butler. They may possibly be on holiday on this date, as half the servants were from Yorkshire.

A further Education Act of 1876 (Sandon’s Act) reinforced the principle that all children should receive elementary education by placing a duty on parents to ensure that their children attendedschool and created school attendance committees which could compel attendance.

In 1877 Miss Serjeantson died (8th December), aged 71 at Grantham. A group of energetic local worthies including the Dean of Ripon (the Very Reverend William Robert Freemantle, the Reverend Henry Drury Cust Nunn (Minor Canon), Samuel Swire of Littlethorpe Manor, William Westwood Gatcliffe of Thorpe Lodge, Thomas Wood of Bellwood, Charles Nicholson of Stud Farm and Joseph Lowley of Ripon raised the sum of £800, 14 shillings and 2 pence to build a church. They purchased of a parcel of land containing 1,210 square yards at an area called Garth Close from John Denison of Brookdale House, The Valley, Scarborough for the site of a chapel in Littlethorpe (St Michael the Archangel) and construction of the church began by a Ripon builder, James Trees & Son.

The Church of St Michael the Archangel (built largely of brick) was consecrated on Easter Sunday, 23rd April, 1878 by the Bishop of Ripon, Right Reverend Robert Bickersteth as a chapel of ease of the Cathedral – “a chapel or church provided for the ease or comfort of those living some distance from the main parish church”. The first priest was Reverend Henry Drury Cust Nunn. The only original stained-glass window was the East Window, made by Hughes of London and dedicated in memory of Carolyn Susanna Worsley (nee Serjeantson). All the other windows in the nave contained clear glass. There was no organ but the pews in the nave were probably part of the original furniture. It was a small chapel, simply furnished, with few adornments. he following year (1879) Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley resigned as Canon of Ripon Cathedral.

The 1880 Elementary Education Act introduced compulsory attendance at elementary (primary) school from the ages of 5 to 10 and also compulsory attendance up to the age of 14 unless an exemption certificate was granted. Exemption could be obtained if the child had met a required number of attendances (250 attendances per year for 10-12 year olds and 150 per year for those over 12) or if the child had obtained a “labour certificate” – proof that the child had reached the educational standard required by local by-laws or had a paid job to go to. Employers of those children who were not able to show this were penalised. Attendance Officers visited the homes of children who failed to attend.

Ripon Corporation gained full control of fairs and markets in 1880 when it purchased the stallage (the right of erecting stalls for fairs and markets and the rent derived from that) from the Ecclesiastical Commission for £1,500. Previously the Corporation had levied a corn toll and the

opening of the market in the open square, opposite the Unicorn Hotel, was commenced by the Bell-Man ringing the Corn Bell at 11 a.m. Tradition had it that the Bell Man must have large hands as the corn toll required him to take a handful from each sack of corn as toll. Throughout the 1880s the credibility of many traditional religious assumptions was being eroded by the accumulated findings of geology, biblical scholarship, comparative anthropology and evolutionary biology. Republicanism, socialism and the birth-control movement were also on the rise.

In 1881 employment at Littlethorpe potteries fell to eight workers. The charges for taking the priest from Ripon to Littlethorpe (return) each Sunday was 3/6d each trip.

According to the 1881 census, among the 114 inmates of the Ripon workhouse were George Cotson, aged 78, a gardener and Thomas Coates, aged 39 – general labourer and “imbecile”. In 1882 Dry Leys (just to the south of the abandoned village of Aismunderby) – a detached part ofMarkenfield Hall parish – was incorporated into Littlethorpe following the Divided Parishes Act. In 1884 by another Representation of the People Act the male electorate was doubled to five million. That same year, in a Report of Her Majesty’s Commissioners for Inquiring into The Condition of Cathedral Churches in England and Wales it is noted that:-

“a Chapel of Ease was built in 1877 at the hamlet of Littlethorpe to supply church accommodation in connection with the Cathedral Parish for which ministrations are supplied by the Minor Canons and which at times inconveniently interfere with their duties in the Cathedral services.”

As the century drew to a close change continued unabated. In 1885 Rev. Pennyman Wharton Worsley, husband of Carolyn Susanna Serjeantson died at Little Ponton, Lincolnshire. In 1889 Littlethorpe came under the aegis of the West Riding County Council. In 1891 elementary education was made free and in 1893 the school leaving age was raised to 11.

By 1892 there was no traffic on the Ure Navigation beyond Boroughbridge – the Ripon Canal was effectively disused. In 1894 an attempt was made by the North Eastern Railway to abandon the Ripon Canal but this was prevented by local opposition. The Canal was offered to York Corporation as a free gift – but not accepted.

That same year the Local Government Act meant that women who owned property could now vote in local elections, become Poor Law Guardians and act on School Boards. The same Act also established Parish Councils – Littlethorpe Parish Council owes its’ origins to this legislation. The present boundaries of Littlethorpe Parish were set in 1896 as the old parish of Whitcliffe-with-Thorpe was merged with parts of the rural parish of Aismunderby-with-Bondgate. The parish now covered an area of 923 hectares, or just under nine and a quarter square kilometres. In this year the commercial tonnage carried by the canal had declined by over 90% from 1846.

Educational change continued. In 1897 the Voluntary Schools Act provided grants to public elementary schools (Church schools) not funded by School Boardsand in 1899 the school leaving age was raised again to 12 and then 13.

Twentieth Century In August 1900 Ripon Racecourse moved to the present Boroughbridge Road site, the Ripon Race Company having been formed the previous year. The 1901 census revealed that the population of Littlethorpe was 131, living in 30 houses. Ripon itself had 35 licensed pubs and 5 “beer houses”.

Another Education Act (Balfour’s Act) of 1902 abolished local school boards and placed schools under local education authorities to organise funding, employ teachers and allocate school places. They would now administer voluntary (i.e. church) schools, which for the first time received public funds.

The Foxton family connection with Littlethorpe site ended in 1902 when David Rhodes and AlfredDougill took over the brick, tile and pottery business as proprietors. In 1908 what is now Littlethorpe Potteries was divided into two parts – Littlethorpe Brick & Tile Company and Ripon Brick & Tile Company. In 1910 Littlethorpe Potteries site purchased by W. Hymas and leased to a York builder, Jim Green.

A Royal Commission reported in 1906 that Ripon Canal was impassable and practically derelict. Although it was effectively closed, it was used by skaters during cold winters. In 1907 police set up a speed trap on Littlethorpe Lane and charged several motorists with driving at speeds “reckless to the public” – that is, between 25 and 30 miles per hour! A cricket team existed in Littlethorpe at this time, although Kirkby Malzeard decided not to play them as the Littlethorpe side was deemed “not strong enough”.

In 1912 George Curtis started work at Littlethorpe Potteries as a bench boy. The following year Littlethorpe Potteries now employed nineteen people.

1914 saw unsuccessful moves to establish a graveyard at St Michael’s Church. Livestock sales in Ripon Market Square were discontinued that same year. Between 1915 and 1919 a World War 1 Army Camp was constructed on the outskirts of Ripon at Hellwath – one of the largest Army camps in the country. Prior to the outbreak of war there had been an Army base in tents to the south and west of Ripon, used for summer training camps. At the outbreak of war a 1,000-acre permanent camp housing two divisions (30,000 soldiers) was constructed at a cost of £350,000. The population of Ripon at that time was only 7,000. It stretched in a huge swathe from Kirkby Road to Harrogate Road, taking in long stretches of the Laver and Skell and reaching out as far as Studley Roger. The construction involved 19 miles of main roads, 16 miles of secondary roads, 16 miles of sewers and drains and a light railway, branching from the main railway line at Littlethorpe Junction and crossing the Harrogate Road near where Morrisons supermarket now stands. The line enabled a full range of supplies to be delivered direct to the camp. Troops were housed in wooden huts whilst training prior to embarkation to the trenches.

During the War (in 1915) ownership of the current Littlethorpe Potteries site passed to F. Richardson. 1916 saw the end of commercial activities on the Ripon Canal. That same year there were twenty-one pupils at Littlethorpe Public Elementary School.

At the end of the World War 1 in 1918 it appeared that Britain emerged supreme. Her cities and fields were unscathed, her navy unchallenged, her armies triumphant and her enemies vanquished. In reality, however, the war left Britain bitterly divided, spiritually exhausted and financially ruined.

The gold reserves had been drained and the National Debt surpassed the Gross National Product. In 1914 it had been over £700 million but by 1920 had reached almost £8,000 million, despite income tax quintupling in the course of the war. Inflation and unemployment soon reached levels not seen in a century. Taxes and death duties alone provoked such economic agonies that between 1918 and 1921 a quarter of all British land would change hands, a shift in fortunes and ownership on a scale not experienced since the Norman Conquest.

Legislation continued. The Representation of the People Act of 1918 extended the franchise to all women over 30 years of age who were either a member of or married to a member of the Local Government Register. The Education Act of that same year made 14 the mandatory, rather than the permissive school leaving age and gave permission for local education authorities to extend it to 15.In January 1919 there was a major outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Littlethorpe at Broadfield Farm (Ernest Abel), Thorpe Nurseries (Robert Horner), Thorpe Cottage Farm (William Tuley), Moor End Farm (John Francis Parker), Moor Head Farm (Arthur Eustace Wood), Oxclose House and Lowland Fields (both Robert Renton). In July of that year Herbert Grayson, a shunter, was crushed while coupling-up trucks on the railway at Littlethorpe. In August a meeting held in the Schoolroom decided that the balance of £23, 9 shillings and 6 pence from the (First World War) Peace Festivities Fund be handed over to the Committee with the object of purchasing and erecting a building suitable for a Parish Room. The wooden building was purchased from Colonel Kyle for £120 and the site given by a Mr Price. Further monies were loaned interest-free.

Thus on 1st January 1920 the original Village Hall – the Memorial Institute – was formally opened by Mr J T Gilling, JP. It was situated almost directly opposite Littlethorpe Public Elementary School, and the outline can still just be seen at the edge of the field. Reverend Macpherson thanked all who had assisted in the provision of the Institute. Credit was due to Mr W S Horner and the Committee for their efforts. During the 1920s George Washington Spence (after whom Washington Close is named) ran a Ripon-based business repairing and manufacturing spring-handled cricket bats. He was a “dapper little man with a waxed moustache” and also owned property in Bondgate, Ripon, from which he collected rents. In the early 1920s Beatrice Jewett was appointed as headmistress of Littlethorpe Public Elementary School

The 1921 Railways Act created “Big Four” railway companies and in 1923 the Ripon line of the North Eastern Railway Company became part of the London & North East Railway (LNER). The 1928 Representation of the People Act extended the franchise to all adults over 21. Meanwhile, in 1922 Arthur Fell, paternal grandfather to Roly Curtis bought Littlethorpe Potteries

In 1930 the Ripon workhouse was taken over by West Riding County Council and became the Ripon Public Assistance Institution. 1931 saw the founding of the Ripon Motor Boat Club, using a small stretch of Canal which remained open above Rentons Bridge. Littlethorpe residents (Mr O.L. Anders and Mr J. Bottomley) were active in the early years. However, in August of that year the lower gates of Ox Close Lock on the Canal collapsed, almost emptying the canal. Repairs were made and paid for by the then owners, the London & North East Railway – the last such expenditure made by them. By 1935 the Canal was derelict and abandoned for use, with the upper locks on closed and padlocked in 1937.

Meanwhile Littlethorpe Public Elementary School closed in 1936, with a final attendance of twelve pupils and was sold for residential purposes in 1938. In 1932 George Curtis had married the daughter of the owner of Littlethorpe Potteries and in 1939 he and his wife inherited the Potteries. However, Brick and tile production ended at the site in 1940.

During the Second World War a School Harvest Camp was held in Littlethorpe in 1944. Organised by the West Riding War Agricultural Executive Committee, it involved pupils from Wheelwright Girls Grammar School in Dewsbury. Between 1944 and 1949 German prisoners of war were interned at the Racecourse Camp, Ripon. As the War ended, in 1945 Littlethorpe Memorial Institute (the original Village Hall) burned down. Considerable thought and discussion then went into plans for the provision of a new Hall. Quarry Moor (located within the Littlethorpe parish) was donated by Alderman Thomas P Spence in 1945 to be held in trust for the benefit of the people of Ripon.

The post-war period saw further change. In 1947 the Transport Act saw railways, canals and long-distance road haulage acquired by the state. Although the Royal Engineers dredged part of Ripon Canal that year in 1948 the Railway Executive (the wartime body for railways) handed over Ripon Canal to the Inland Waterways Executive of the British Transport Commission, created to provide an “efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transportand port facilities within Great Britain for passengers and goods.”

However, the canal itself was not nationalised. Meanwhile LNER became part of British Railways. The Ripon workhouse now became an old people’s home, although vagrants were still able to use the casual wards.

By the 1951 census the population of Ripon was 9,652. There were now 29 public houses – one for every 333 inhabitants! During the 1950s work ceased on quarrying at Quarry Moor. In 1952-53 the British Transport Commission attempted to sell Ripon Canal to Ripon Corporation, but the offer was refused.

After much deliberation, in 1953 the present Village Hall building was purchased, the foundations laid and the building erected. In May of that year a decision was made by the Village Hall Committee to allow the Coronation Committee to use the new Village Hall “in its’ then state” for Coronation celebrations – but no entertainment could be allowed as the floor was not yet laid. By August the new Village Hall was used for a Village Hall Committee meeting in a partially completed state and on 6th May, 1954 the current Village Hall was formally opened. At this time Littlethorpe also boasted a football team. St Michael’s Church Vestry Meeting was held for the first time in the new Village Hall on 7th May, 1955. That year also saw the introduction of commercial television.

In 1956 the Ripon Canal was officially abandoned under the terms of the British Transport Commission Act of 1955. The two upper locks of Ripon Canal (Bell Furrow’s Lock and Rhodes Field Lock) were demolished and turned into cascades at the instigation of the West Riding County Council. That same year St Michael’s Church was licensed by Ripon Cathedral to solemnise marriage. In 1958 it was reported that the Sunday School and Choir were flourishing at St Michael’s Church, but by 1960 concern was being expressed about the declining attendance of young people at St Michael’s. At this time around 50% of the British population attended church each week. By 1965 the Sunday School was disbanded due to lack of support.

During the late 1950s the advent of mass-produced plastic vessels for domestic and garden use led to a dramatic fall in the demand for earthenware. The remaining four staff were laid off at Littlethorpe Potteries and it continued to run as a family business. By 1960 use of the casual wards for vagrants ceased at the old people’s home in Ripon (formerly the workhouse).

1961 saw the formation of the Ripon Canal Company Ltd – consisting of people who were part of Ripon Motor Boat Club – with the intention of leasing the Canal and gradually reopening it. The Company leased the Canal until 1968. Questions were raised about the economic viability of the railway line, but attempts to mobilise public opinion in favour of its’ retention were met with an apathetic response. By 1962 the British Transport Commission was disbanded and British Waterways was formed. In 1968 British Waterways took over control of the Ripon Canal from the Ripon Canal Company.

In 1964 Miss Pauline Foulds of Littlethorpe, who had been paralysed from the waist down following a riding accident, won three gold medals for swimming at the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. Meanwhile by 1967 the railway line north of Harrogate was closed to passenger traffic and in October, 1969 the railway line was closed to freight traffic and the coal depot closed. During the 1970s the quarry at Quarry Moor was in-filled. In 1971 a BBC TV documentary “Big Ware” made by Philip Trevelyan about George Curtis was shown on the Omnibus series and in 1975 George Curtis handed over control of Littlethorpe Potteries to Roly Curtis. In 1970 farmworker Maurice Bland burned down a barn and outbuildings at Low Demains Farm, Littlethorpe because he had a fixation that he was axed from the will of his boss’s wife. He was jailed for life for arson.

As part of local government reorganisation in 1974 Ripon was given city status and Littlethorpe came under North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council, rather than the West Riding. 1978 saw the centenary celebrations held at St Michaels Church. In that same year land adjacent to the Ripon Canal was purchased by Ripon Motor Boat Club and excavation of the Marina and Clubhouse began, the first craft entering the new marina in the October of the following year, although it was not until September, 1980 that the marina and clubhouse were officially opened.

1983 saw the founding of the Ripon Canal Society with the intention of reopening the Canal to navigation and work commenced in 1984 on rebuilding Rhodes Field Lock and Bell’s Furrow Lock. That work was completed in 1986 and the canal was reopened as far as Littlethorpe Road bridge.

1985 saw Littlethorpe Potteries established as a Working Heritage Centre and in 1986 Quarry Moor was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Also that year St Michael’s Church became a Grade 2 Listed Building under English Heritage.

In 1993 Maurice Bland, on shopping release from Rudgate Prison, Wetherby, returned to Low Demains Farm (site of his earlier 1970 arson attempt) and set it on fire again, causing damage worth £30,000. He was given a second life sentence the following year. In 1995 work on the Ripon City Bypass got underway and was completed the following year. Also in 1996 restoration work was completed with the assistance of the Ripon Canal Society and local authorities, with funding from English Partnerships, and the Ripon Canal reopened for navigation to the canal basin. As a result in 1997 the Ripon Canal Society was disbanded. Between 1999 and 2002 British Waterways built a further “Racecourse” Marina, nearer to the head of the navigation, adjacent to the Ripon Racecourse and wildlife lagoons.

Twenty-First Century

In 2001 Quarry Moor became one of a nation-wide network of Local Nature Reserves and in 2002 the gardens of Littlethorpe Manor were opened to the public under the National Gardens Scheme.2004 saw the fifty years anniversary of current Littlethorpe Village Hall celebrated and in 2006 Ripon Motor Boat Club celebrated its’ 75th anniversary. In 2008 a Garden of Remembrance was consecrated at St Michael’s Church.

2009 saw British Waterways announce plans to make canals part of a “national trust” of the waterways and Appletrees Nursery opened in Littlethorpe. The 2011 census revealed that the total population of Littlethorpe was 573.

2012 was the year of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee celebrations and included a village party and the planting of a Jubilee Tree in the grounds of St Michael’s Church. Also that year the Canals and Rivers Trust came into being – the largest transfer of UK state-owned infrastructure into the charitable sector. It is now responsible for the Ripon Canal.

In 2013, following extensive fund-raising by the Village Hall Committee charity, a new extension storeroom was constructed at the Village Hall and opened on 12th October. 2014 saw the Tour de France passes within half a mile of Littlethorpe and villagers throng the Ripon bypass to see it. The Serjeantson Educational Foundation was finally wound up and the remaining monies transferred to the Littlethorpe Village Hall charity. 2014 was also the 60th anniversary of the opening of the current Littlethorpe Village Hall.

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