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01
Jan
The unique Ripon ceremony that has defied plague, war and weather
At 8.55 on a rainy night in Ripon, wind whistled across a near-empty Market Square which would normally, on December 31, be packed with partygoers.
In spite of the inclement weather, which saw a free-to-attend concert and fireworks display cancelled, a handful of hardy people braved the elements to come to see and hear the setting of the watch ceremony,
On the 366th night of the 2024 leap year, the unique record that puts Ripon on the heritage and history map as holder of the world's longest unbroken tradition, remained intact.
With impeccable timing Allison Clark, a member of the city's hornblower team since 2017, was ready to blow the first of four blasts of her horn at the ninth strike of the nearby cathedral clock.
Members of the Abdy family, with a borrowed Stray Ferret umbrella, were among those who braved the weather to attend the ceremony
What a difference a year makes, as can be seen on this picture from the celebrations on New Year's Eve 2023
Last night's ceremony, featuring, on this occasion, the Chillingham Quest horn – donated to the city in 2019 by three-times Mayor of Ripon Pauline McHardy – concluded with the hornblower reporting from under the mayoral lamp at the front door of Ripon Town Hall, that the watch had been satisfactorily set.
Before then, she gave a short talk about the history behind the setting of the watch, to windswept onlookers gathered at the base of the city's imposing obelisk.
She said:
The ceremony dates back to AD 886 when Alfred the Great gave a ceremonial horn to the people of Ripon to thank them for fighting off a Viking incursion.
Since then, the setting the watch to announce that Ripon is safe, has taken place without break for 1,138 years, including during the covid pandemic when the hornblowers maintained the tradition by blowing their horns at their own homes.
The watch was initially set by the wakeman, but this changed in 1604 when Hugh Ripley, the last wakeman and first mayor of Ripon, appointed a hornblower to carry out the nightly duty.
The small group of people who gathered at the obelisk last night, heard about the history of the hornblower from one of the current incumbents, Allison Clark.
While the weather put paid to outdoor New Year's Eve activities across the UK and in Ripon, the hornblower ceremony, which has taken place through centuries that have seen plague, civil war and changes of government, was never going to be blown off course.
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