Image ID: 00654

St Wilfrid's Festival Illustration, 1844

Date: Unknown

This etching appeared in the Illustrated London News of 1844. According to local custom, the 'procession' has followed this pattern for hundreds of years. The Feast was celebrated with much merriment as it was the one frivolity the locals could indulge in without incurring the displeasure of the Church - one of the two main powers in Ripon (the other being the Lord of the Manor of Studley). From 1859, and continuing to the present day, a citizen of Ripon takes the part of "St. Wilfrid" wearing vestments given by the Ripon Racecourse Company and following the then newly formed Ripon City Silver Prize Band. The procession today follows this form with the addition of a tail of carnival floats - an idea put forward by Dean Hughes and others as a way of reinvigorating an event in which people were tending to lose interest. In this drawing you can see on the left beyond the archway the three shops which became Metcalfe's the furnishers. Beyond Metcalfe's is a low building and beyond that can be seen the Minster Inn - the last call before you went to church and the first call on coming out according to the local residents. (N.B. Do not confuse this Minster Inn with the York Minster Inn which was in the Market Sq uare- where Boots now is).

Courtesy of Unknown

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