The pictorial pocket guide to Ripon and Harrogate; with topographical observations on Studley-Royal,Brimham rocks,Hackfall,and the monastic remains of Fountains and Bolton - Softcover
Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1849 Excerpt: ... 16 Soon after his elevation, he began to embody those dignified views and principles of architecture, he had acquired in his continental tours, in the improvement of his cathedral church at York; and immediately after it would seem, from the consecutive narrative of his chaplain, determined to erect a new monastery at Ripon. Of what form and extent the old abbey had been, is of course unknown. Its site, occupying upwards of two acres and a half, is now circumscribed, as I presume, by a portion of Stammergate, Priest-lane, and a nameless road on the south, and is now called "Scot's Monument Yard." The buildings were undoubtedly of wood--judging alike from the fashion of the Scots, f and the ability of the times. The raised mound in the field seems composed of gravel; but there are foundations diverging from thence which have disclosed large stones. Several Saxon Stycas, of the Northumbrian king Ethelred, have been dug up in this field; and a portion of a cylindrical column of grit stone 4ft. 5in. in circumference. This might, however, have formed part of some chapel erected several centuries after the foundation of the monastery, as fragments of the slender marble shafts which were liberally employed in Early English architecture, have also been found there. Wilfrid, from some cause now unintelligible, chose the site of his new foundation about 200 yards from the old building; and on the western side of what is now, and might even then have been, the public street. We know not how he, whose soul was filled with enthusiastic resolves and lofty aspirations, developed and embodied the dreams and designs that had been excited by the triumphant and immortal piles of the ruined City of the World; but, there can be no reasonable doubt, but that here he erected one ...
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