Ripon City Council is looking to recruit a fourth hornblower to perform the 9pm setting of the watch - an event held daily for 1,134 years.

The world-famous hornblower ceremony has not been seen or heard on Ripon's Market Square for six months.

Social distancing requirements that came into effect at the end of March have meant that the current hornblowers - Wayne Cobbett, Richard Midgley and Allison Clark - have shared the nightly task with four blasts of the horn at their own homes.

The behind closed doors ceremony has been broadcast by each person on Facebook.

George Pickles was the last person to singularly hold the hornblower office. When he retired in 2015, a team was recruited to share the duties.

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Applicants have until 12 noon on Monday 26 October to put their names forward.

The job description, which can be found on the council's Facebook page, says candidates need to be available for regular duty for up to three nights per week.

According to tradition, the successful applicant will be required to sound the horn with:

The job also involves sounding of the horn outside the mayor's house each evening and attendance at civic events.

The duties described on the council's Facebook page will only apply when the Ripon hornblowers return to the Market Square and Cllr Parkin pointed out:

The ceremony dates back to AD 886 when Alfred the Great, king of the Saxons, awarded a horn to the local people of Ripon in gratitude for the way in which they fought off a Viking attack.

Setting of the watch, or curfew, has survived the Norman Conquest, the Black Death, the English Civil War and two world wars.

The city council is determined to ensure that it will also survive the Covid pandemic.