Crypt

Some oddities about Ripon Cathedral. I took this photo in the crypt below. Here's how one website describes it:

"Built in 672 by Saint Wilfrid, Ripon Cathedral’s Crypt predates England itself by 255 years, and it’s still accepting pilgrims and visitors today.

Accessed by steep and narrow steps, a claustrophobic and gloomy passageway winds underneath a medieval cathedral. This cramped tunnel leads to a white painted void, believed by its creators to be a faithful representation of Jesus’s modest tomb.

With an arched ceiling, a simple altar, and a 14th-century alabaster carving of the resurrection, the otherwise chilly emptiness of this simple whitewashed crypt disguises its rich historical significance.

Ripon's crypt, and the long-vanished basilica it was originally built beneath, were the first of their kind to be built in the Kingdom of Northumbria, a territory that once covered most of Northern England and part of Southern Scotland."

Ripon

Another reason to eat lunch at the Royal Oak is that it is literally around the corner from the cathedral where I was headed next for rehearsal. We had so many rehearsals because the choir sang different music for each performance. In fact, most of us traveled with separate bags for the sole purpose of carrying our music and choir robes. Also, each cathedral or chapel had its own unique acoustics and physical space, requiring us to quickly settle in and adjust to the new circumstances.

The Royal Oak

So the story behind I found myself eating at The Royal Oak in Ripon begins with the dinner I enjoyed the night before in Harrogate. There the waiter, learning that I was to sing the next day at Ripon Cathedral, heartily recommended that I grab lunch here. He was right. It was a great place to eat. Plus I was welcomed there by a very cordial and, I must say, quite accommodating canine maître d'. :-)

Meat Pies

 

 

Appleton's in Ripon. Reminded me of the "meat pies" I ate as a kid living in England not far from here.

Ripon

First look at Ripon Cathedral, where we sang evensong and the next morning's Eucharist.

"The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, commonly known as Ripon Cathedral, and until 1836 known as Ripon Minster, is a cathedral in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England. Founded as a monastery by monks of the Irish tradition in the 660s, it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672. The church became collegiate in the tenth century, and acted as a mother church within the large Diocese of York for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The present church is the fourth, and was built between the 13th and 16th centuries. In 1836 the church became the cathedral for the Diocese of Ripon." -- Wikipedia

The Crown

After rehearsing in Stamford, our choir traveled to the Crown Hotel in Harrogate (shown abpve) where we arrived just in time to take our bags to our rooms and head out to find something to eat for a late supper.

Here's how The Crown describes itself: "This glorious Victorian exercise of Italian Renaissance in sandstone has a long and distinguished history that reaches back to the early 1600s when visitors first began to drink the waters of the world's strongest known Sulphur Well The name Crown may have been adopted around the time of Charles II's restoration of the monarchy in 1660, when a much smaller inn overlooked the Sulphur Well to the west. Since then, the Crown thrived, reaching 'gigantic proportions,' by the time Lord Byron and his 'string of horses, dogs and mistresses' were guests in 1806 . . . . When Elgar stayed at the Crown, it was probably at the peak of its Edwardian perfection. After being sequestered by the government in 1939, the Crown reopened to visitors in 1958."

Rehearsal

Rehearsal in St. Mary's chancel, Stamford.