29 Facts About Ripon

Ripon is a cathedral city in the Borough of Harrogate, North Yorkshire, England.

Ripon became well known for its production of spurs during the 16th and 17th centuries, but would later remain largely unaffected by the Industrial Revolution.

Ripon is the third-smallest city in England and the smallest in Yorkshire, by population.

Solid evidence for the origins of Ripon can be traced back to the 7th century, the time of the Anglian kingdom of Northumbria.

Ripon is thought to have shrunk to a small community around the church following the suppression.

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Ripon's proximity to Fountains Abbey, where the Cistercians had a long tradition of sheep farming and owned much grazing land, was a considerable advantage.

Ripon, which relied heavily on its religious institutions, was badly affected by the English Reformation under the Tudor king Henry VIII.

Ripon replaced its old textiles industry with one for the manufacture of spurs during the 16th century.

Ripon was the first Church of England diocese to be created after the English Reformation, as it was recognised that existing dioceses were unsuited for the large increases in population caused particularly by the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century in central England.

Ripon council presumed this had elevated the town to the rank of city, and started referring to itself as such.

Ripon was encouraged to follow suit, with its own status being recognised by the parliamentary City of Ripon Act in 1865.

In 1974 Ripon borough was abolished and a parish council established as part of wider local government reform.

Ripon became a municipal borough of the West Riding of Yorkshire with its headquarters at Ripon Town Hall in 1835, and remained an independent borough until 1974.

That year, following the Local Government Act 1972, the former area of Ripon borough was merged with Harrogate borough and several rural districts of the West Riding to form an enlarged Harrogate borough in the ceremonial county of North Yorkshire.

Lowest tier of governance in Ripon is the Ripon City Council, a parish council with twelve members, three for each of four wards.

Ripon was represented by the Member of Parliament for Yorkshire until it had its own parliamentary borough established on a permanent basis in 1553.

Ripon was able to elect two MPs to represent its parliamentary borough; the right of election was vested not in the population as a whole, but in the burgesses until the Great Reform Act of 1832.

Some more notable MPs of Ripon were John Aislabie, Frederick John Robinson and George Cockburn.

Since 1983, Ripon has been part of the Skipton and Ripon constituency, a Conservative Party stronghold.

Ripon previously had higher education facilities in the form of the College of Ripon and York St John until 2001.

Ripon Cathedral is the main religious building in the city and contains a tomb said to contain the bones of Saint Wilfrid who founded a monastery here and with it the town.

In 2014 it became part of the Diocese of Leeds, with Ripon Cathedral serving as one of its three cathedrals of equal status.

Part of the tradition represents the return of Wilfrid to Ripon, a decorated dummy dressed as Wilfrid is sat on a horse, accompanied by two musicians with another man carrying St Wilfrid's hat around.

Ripon has dancing traditions such as the Long Sword dance and Morris dance.

Market square is the site of the Ripon Obelisk, erected in 1702 by John Aislabie and was designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor.

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Tradition of the Ripon Hornblower has endured since the year 886 and continues on to this day.

Ripon staged Britain's first race for female riders in 1723.

Ripon is accessible from the east and west via the A61 which is the main road running through the city.

Ripon Canal was proposed by John Smeaton in 1766, to connect the city centre to part of the River Ure; it was used for the transportation of coal from the Durham coalfields into the city.