Distance: 5.5 miles Time to complete walk: 3 hours
Safety Tips: A safe walk. Take care on the riverbank, take a walking stick with you as the cornfields near the river can be overgrown.
A delightful walk in Ripon, starting in the market square and passing by the impressive Ripon cathedral. Continuing by the riverside of two rivers, the River Skell and the River Ure. The walk then takes a detour through cornfields and farm tracks to the beautiful village of Sharrow and the Sharrow Cross. Jam packed with things to do and see, make this one a day out to discover Ripon for yourself.
The Ripon Walk
Getting There
Follow the A19 south and then join the A61 at Thirsk. Follow the A61 to Ripon. As you enter Ripon, turn right before the market square and parking can be found near Booths shopping centre. Parking is £1.40 for three hours. If you are staying longer than 3 hours make sure you top up your parking ticket as the car park is regularly checked by a traffic warden. Thursday is market day at Ripon and I highly recommend going on market day if you want to sample some of the stalls local produce.
Map of the Ripon walk
The Walk
From the car park follow the path out of the carpark and turn right as you come out onto the street. Head for the market square and the town hall opposite.
Market Square and town hall
Look for the road called Kirkgate to the left of the town hall and follow the road down to Ripon Cathedral.
Ripon town hall
Head down Kirkgate to the left of the town hall
The cathedral is best visited after the walk, so you can top up your carpark ticket. There is a lovely café opposite the cathedral. However you can make a quick visit if you prefer.
Head towards the cathedral
Ripon Cathedral
From the cathedral, turn right and go down Bedern Bank and walk straight ahead at the roundabout along King Street and walk over the bridge over the River Skell.
Turn right down Bedern Bank
Go over the bridge
Over the bridge, mmediately take a left turning to go down and walk beside the river.
Follow he path beside the river
Stay on the riverside path passing a pub called the Water Rat and cross the street to return to the riverside path.
Houses across the river
Keep on the riverside path
Keep on the riverside path and along Fisher Green and under a railway bridge.
Go under the railway bridge
At the end of the path follow it onto a wooded path.
Follow the path into the trees
When you emerge from the trees, you find yourself on an embankment with a path to the left. Follow the path through the field with the river still on your left. (You are at point 1 on the map)
Emerge onto the path
Follow the path ahead
The path will soon meet a cornfield which can be overgrown. Use your walking stick to navigate through. Keep on the path with the river to your left until you come to a road.
Follow the path through the cornfield
Make your way onto the road ahead
Walk carefully to the left and over the bridge until you see a signpost to the left to Sharrow immediately over the bridge.
View of the river from the bridge
Signpost on the left to Sharrow
Walk for a short while beside the river and then look for a path to your right which cuts through the crops in the field. (You are at point 2 on the map)
Cut through the field of crops on the right
Eventually you come to a gate. Go through the gate and then take the track to the right.
Go through the gate
Continue on the path to the right
Keep on the track which merges with a farm track until you come out into the village of Sharrow.
Follow the track
Emerge into the village of Sharrow
(You are at point 3 on the map)
Turn left and follow the road to a junction with the remains of Sharrow Cross on the corner of the junction.
Follow the lane through Sharrow
The remains of Sharrow Cross
Turn left along Dishforth Road until you approach a roundabout. Cross over to the other side to a footpath taking care with the traffic.
Cross over the road approaching the roundabout
Go beneath the bypass and turn left and then left again over North Bridge.
Go over North Bridge
Turn left over the bridge into Magdalen's Road and head down towards a kissing gate on the left
Head left to a kissing gate
Follow the path which runs beside the River Ure through meadows.
Follow the path under the road
Follow the path through the meadows
(You are at point 4 on the map)
Head through the wooded area keeping on the same path until you come to a broken kissing gate.
Follow the path passing a broken kissing gate
Passing through trees, keep to the right at a fork in the path and passing a bench keep right at another fork in the path
Keep to the right at a fork in the path
Keep to the right at another fork near a bench
Rejoining the River Skell keep on the track ahead and go through a kissing gate on your right.
Go through the kissing gate on your right
Follow the road under the bridge. (You are at point 5 on the map)
Follow the road under the bridge
Head towards the road ahead until you come to a double junction. Cross the road onto Low Mill Road.
Head onto Low Mill Road
Head towards the cathedral grounds at the back of the cathedral and follow it back to the front of the cathedral. Time to top up your parking ticket and explore the glory of the cathedral inside!
Views of Ripon Cathedral
Ripon Cathedral
Ripon Cathedral is a cathedral in the North Yorkshire city of Ripon. Originally founded by St Wilfrid in 672, the church is currently a seat of the Bishop of Leeds, and snce 2014 has been one of three co-equal mother churches of the Diocese of Leeds. From 1836 to 2014 the church was the cathedral of the Diocese of Ripon, and during the Middle Ages acted as a mother church within the large Diocese of York.The cathedral has Grade I listed building status.
There has been a stone church on the site since 672 when Saint Wilfrid replaced the previous timber church of the monastery at Ripon (a daughter house of Saint Aidan's monastery at Melrose) with one in the Roman style. This is one of the earliest stone buildings erected in the Anglo-Saxon Kingdom of Northumbria. The crypt dates from this period.People have been coming to worship and pray at Ripon for more than 1,350 years. The Cathedral building itself is part of this continuing act of worship, begun in the 7th century when Saint Wilfrid built one of England's first stone churches on this site, and still renewed every day. Within the nave and choir, you can see the evidence of 800 years in which master craftsmen have expressed their faith in wood and stone.
Today's church is the fourth to have stood on this site. Saint Wilfrid brought stonemasons, plasterers and glaziers from France and Italy to build his great basilica in AD 672. A contemporary account by Eddius Stephanus tells us:
"In Ripon, Saint Wilfrid built and completed from the foundations to the roof a church of dressed stone, supported by various columns and side-aisles to a great height and many windows, arched vaults and a winding cloister."
Saint Wilfrid was buried in this church near the high altar. Devastated by the English king Eadred in AD 948 as a warning to the Archbishop of York only the crypt of Wilfrid's church survived but today this tiny 7th-century chapel rests complete beneath the later grandeur of Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque’s 12th century minster. A second minster soon arose at Ripon, but it too perished – this time in 1069 at the hands of William the Conqueror. Thomas of Bayeux, first Norman Archbishop of York, then instigated the construction of a third church, traces of which were incorporated into the later chapter house of Roger's minster.
The Early English west front was added in 1220, its twin towers originally crowned with wooden spires and lead. Major rebuilding had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses but resumed after the accession of Henry VII and the restoration of peace in 1485. The nave was widened and the central tower partially rebuilt. The church's thirty five misericords were carved between 1489 and 1494. It is worth noting that the same (Ripon) school of carvers also carved the misericords at Beverley Minster and Manchester Cathedral. But in 1547, before this work was finished, Edward VI dissolved Ripon's college of canons. All revenues were appropriated by the Crown and the tower never received its last Perpendicular arches. It was not until 1604 that James I issued his Charter of Restoration.
