Upper sixth formers Barnaby Sladden and James Kitchingman have sung their way to success.
The friends sang together for years in the Ripon Cathedral choir and are now heading to Cambridge and Worcester.
They have secured much sought-after choral scholarships.
The Dean of Ripon, the Very Rev John Dobson, said:
“James and Barnaby were gifted members of Ripon Cathedral Choir when I arrived in Ripon in 2014.
“It is such a joy to see them using their musical talents and flourishing so brilliantly.”
Barnaby has been offered a tenor position in the Clare College Chapel Choir at the University of Cambridge.
He will also study maths at the university.
As well as singing with the world-famous choir, he will be involved in regular performances on radio and overseas tours.
Barnaby and James san together for 11 years in the Ripon Cathedral choir.
James won his place at Worcester Cathedral, where he will receive free accommodation in an eighteenth century flat above the cathedral’s Song School.
Barnaby, who is 17, is following in the footsteps of his parents, Dan and Ruth Sladden.
The couple met in the 1990s, when they were Cambridge choral scholars, Dan at King’s and Ruth at Clare College
James, 18, will spend his gap year singing at six services a week in the cathedral and helping to run the music department there,
Michael Barker, director of music at Ripon Grammar School, said:
“Choral scholarships are only given out to the select few students who have shown dedication over time and commitment to choral music.
“I wish them the very best of luck on the next stage of their journeys.”
As a choral scholar, as well as being paid £3,000 a year and enjoying rent-free accommodation, he is looking forward to free singing lessons and mentoring from acclaimed professional musicians.
The famous choir performs in major concert venues all over the UK and has toured in Japan, the USA, Israel and throughout Europe in recent years.
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Like Barnaby, James comes from a musical family.
His mother Cathy, sings and plays the piano, father Andrew, plays piano and organ and sister Helena, 15, is a keen electric guitar player.
Ripon’s saint will still have his dayThe covid lockdown is gradually easing, but Ripon’s annual celebration of St Wilfrid and his legacy will be scaled back for a second year.
St Wilfrid’s Day is one of the city’s biggest occasions of the year, marked with events and a large procession pre-pandemic. Thousands of people would line the city streets and congregate on Market Square.
Organisers are planning for a smaller celebration this year while looking to use 2021 as a platform to promote activities next year and beyond.
As well as being the 1,350th anniversary of St Wilfrid founding a church on the site of Ripon Cathedral, 2022 marks the Queen’s platinum jubilee.
The St Wilfrid’s Procession committee is in discussions with Ripon City Council about having a presence on Market Square over the weekend of 31 July and 1 August.
Committee secretary Sue Simms told the Stray Ferret:
“We did not feel running a large-scale procession this year would be a responsible choice.
“The situation was complicated by the fact that we would have needed to start applying for road closures back in October.
“Because of the coronavirus crisis, we couldn’t plan ahead with any degree of confidence at that time.”
As part of last year’s scaled-back St Wilfrid’s Day celebrations, the Ripon Morris Band performed at social distance in Church Lane.
The procession committee is planning for actors dressed as St Wilfrid and monks to take the traditional walk around Ripon, along with a pony or donkey on Saturday July 31.
It will end on Market Square, where the council is planning to stage a weekend of activities and entertainment for residents and visitors.
Ms Simms said:
“We hope to have space on Market Square to promote and celebrate our saint’s day.
“The objective is to build interest in taking part as entrants and organisers of the procession in future years.”
Last year celebrations of the city’s patron saint were limited to the St Wilfrid trail, with Ms Simms’ husband Paul, dressed as St Wilfrid, walking the route normally taken by a St Wilfrid actor on horseback, along with floats, Ripon City Band and others.
Across the city, businesses and residents maintained the tradition by putting St Wilfrid displays in windows and gardens.
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Looking forward, Ms Simms would like to hear from anybody wanting to become involved in the 2022 procession. She can be contacted on 07964854006.
In past years, pubs, schools, churches, friends, businesses, shops, streets, social, children’s and sports clubs have taken part.
Ripon Cathedral awarded £126,000 for re-opening
Ripon Cathedral has been awarded £126,000 from the second round of the government’s Culture Recovery Fund.
The grant will help the cathedral re-open its doors when lockdown restrictions are eased on May 17.
It will also help provide new information to visitors and market the cathedral to fresh audiences.
The grant is being distributed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and the public body Historic England.
The Dean of Ripon, the Very Rev John Dobson DL said:
“Ripon Cathedral exists to serve the people of the region and visitors from across the country and beyond. We pride ourselves in welcoming people of all faith and no faith, as well as those who come as Christian worshipers and pilgrims.
“These much-needed funds will enable us to open our doors wide for all, as the country emerges from lockdown.”
Visitor numbers at the cathedral are still limited due to covid restrictions. However, it has been streaming some services on its YouTube channel.
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The owner of Newby Hall received £208,300 from the heritage fund and The Parochial Church Council Of The Ecclesiastical Parish Of St Peter High Harrogate received £39,800.
Four other cultural organisations in the district also received funding from the government fund through Arts Council England.
These were:
- Harrogate Theatre: £91,078
- Harrogate International Festivals: £80,000
- Ripon Museum Trust: £69,350
- Cause UK: £35,000
Nearly £400 million has been awarded to thousands of cultural organisations across the country in the second round of funding from the £1.57 billion fund.
Harrogate district churches hold services to mourn Prince PhilipRipon Cathedral and two churches in Knaresborough will be holding services this evening to allow congregations to offer their condolences.
Ripon Cathedral is holding a service of evensong at 6pm today to mark the death of the Duke of Edinburgh.
The cathedral told its congregation, via Facebook, that the service will include a reflection from the Dean of Ripon, the Very Rev John Dobson DL. The service will be sung by the lay clerks of the cathedral’s choir.
Prince Philip died last Friday, aged 99
The Lord Lieutenant of North Yorkshire, Jo Ropner, will be attending.
The tenor bell will toll ahead of the service, half-muffled.
Guests will require a ticket, which can be booked here, and the cathedral asks everyone to be seated for 5.45pm.
Prince Philip died at Windsor Castle last Friday, aged 99.
During the period of mourning the cathedral has been open to visitors. People have been invited take a candle and a prayer card and sit in the cathedral to reflect.
Read more:
- Prayers were said for Prince Philip at Ripon Cathedral last weekend.
- Image Gallery: Prince Philip in the Harrogate district.
In Knaresborough, the Parish Church of St John the Baptist and the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin in Goldsborough will be open for prayer vigils.
Due to covid restrictions the churches have said they will not be offering books of condolence.
All of this evening’s services will be held in line with coronavirus restrictions.
Ripon plans to celebrate two major events next yearThe Royal, loyal and religiously-significant city of Ripon is looking forward to two landmark events next year.
The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee and the 1350th anniversary of Ripon Cathedral coincide in 2022.
Huge city-wide celebrations will be held, with plans to turn buildings and streets red, white and blue.
Earlier this month, Ripon City Council set aside a budget of £105,000 to enable advance planning to take place.
Running from 2 June to 5 June, the Platinum Jubilee Bank Holiday will mark 70 Years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.
Ripon Cathedral, founded by St Wilfrid in 672AD will be playing a key role in the festivities.
At last night’s virtual meeting of the city council events committee, the Dean of Ripon The Very Revd John Dobson, said:
“This is a marvellous chance to celebrate two events – the like of which we have never seen before.”
He added:
“Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee was commemorated with the building of the clock tower, which has been a city landmark since 1897 and we have the opportunity of marking The Queen’s history-making service to the UK in a very special way.”
The Dean of Ripon the Very Revd. John Dobson is looking forward to a year of dual celebration for The Queen and Ripon Cathedral
Dean John was among representatives from a wide-range of voluntary organisations taking part in the meeting.
He congratulated the city council for the strong lead it is taking in planning for 2022.
Chair of the events committee and council leader Andrew Williams, pointed out:
“We want to ensure a year of well-organised events to be enjoyed by all.
“We will mark the start of it at one minute past midnight on New Year’s Eve, with our fireworks display.
“It will end in a burst of red, white and blue, signalling the start of a year of celebrations.”
Plans are being put in place now, so that equipment ranging from fairground rides for young children and staging for performers, can be booked well in advance.
The full programme has yet to be confirmed and the events committee remains open to suggestions.
Councillor Pauline McHardy, suggested that a large poster of The Queen be hung on the front of Ripon Town Hall throughout 2022.
She said:
“This would be a constant reminder of what our wonderful Queen has done for all of us for seven decades.”
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Ahead of the Platinum Jubilee, Councillor Chris Hardisty pointed out:
“The Duke of Edinburgh will be 100 in June and we should find a way of celebrating his birthday.”
Cllr Williams said that this suggestion will be put on the agenda for the April meeting of the committee.
Love, Lent and Songs of Praise from Ripon CathedralSome say it with flowers, others express it in verse and it is a central theme of popular music and hymns.
The theme of love will take centre stage today – and it’s a special occasion for Ripon Cathedral, too.
Valentine’s Day comes a week before the first Sunday of Lent and Ripon Cathedral will feature in a special edition of Songs of Praise on BBC One at 1.15pm today. The pre-recorded programme focuses on the theme of Love and Lent.
Love and Lent will be in focus at Ripon Cathedral in a special edition of Songs of Praise
It includes a discussion between presenter Sean Fletcher and the Bishop of Ripon, the Rt Revd Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, who told the Stray Ferret:
“I reflected that often in Lent it’s popular to give something up.
“This Lent, because we have all lost so much in the past year, it’s an opportunity to take something up, to put on, as it were, the mantle of love
“We can be mindful of our neighbours and loved ones near and far.”
Dr Hartley said she reflected on the connections between Lent and lockdown. Although the former lasts just 40 days, it recalls Jesus’s 40 days in the wilderness.
Similarly, though lockdown leaves many people feeling isolated, Dr Hartley reflected that nobody is alone, even if it can feel that way.
Asked why Ripon Cathedral is so special, having been chosen as the venue for tomorrow’s programme, Dr Hartley said:
“Cathedrals have a profound sense of place and identity and are buildings where people can come and find God and be found by God.
“What makes Ripon special is its 7th century crypt, and that sense of people over hundreds of years coming to this place, making pilgrimage and praying.
“There’s a real strength in that for us today.”
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On a personal Valentine’s Day note, Dr Hartley is anticipating the continuation of a much-loved tradition with her husband Myles.
She said:
Why it’s hard to tell the time of day in Ripon“He always declares Valentine’s Day ‘a season’!
“We will exchange home-made cards and enjoy a meal at home.”
Do people who live in Ripon know the time of day? Not if they have to rely on two civic timepieces that have been serving the city for decades.
Ripon City Council leader Andrew Williams reported that the four-faced Victoria jubilee clock at the junction of Palace Road, North Street and Princess Road can be seen up to 22 minutes slow and also running fast from time to time.
He was not attempting a wind up and has asked for the workings of the clock to be looked into.
The Grade II Listed Building was built by the then Municipal Borough of the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1897, to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
The building passed into the ownership of Harrogate Borough Council with the reorganisation of local government in 1974.
Closer to home for city councillors, the Ripon Town Hall clock also appears in need of some timely maintenance.
By way of research, the Stray Ferret found the Town Hall Clock a good three minutes fast.
The Town Hall timepiece
Meanwhile at the city’s monumental timepiece, Queen Victoria would not have been amused with her clock a full three minutes slow.
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While the city’s civic clocks perform in erratic fashion, the one at Ripon Cathedral ticks all the boxes, with its quarterly and hourly chimes.
With the hands on the Town Hall and Victoria Clock’s four faces continuing to move in mysterious ways, Ripon’s residents need only look at the tower on the western frontage of the cathedral for the accuracy they seek if they want to arrive on time at work, school and appointments.
Here they will see that the clerical clock is a match for any hand-held digital device.
Ripon Cathedral’s 500-year-old font set to be repaired and movedA 15th century font in Ripon Cathedral is set to be moved for the first time since 1722 to a more prominent spot.
The font, made of blue-grey English limestone, is currently located towards the western end of the south aisle.
The cathedral has applied to Harrogate Borough Council for planning permission to relocate the font to the western end of the nave, where it will be visible on entry from any of the west doors.
The minster also wants to fit the font into a new two-step stone plinth with bronze handrail and decorative polished marble finish.
The font, which is believed to date back to the mid-to-late 1400s, survived the Reformation although it is thought to have been damaged during the later English Civil War.
There is a record of the font being repaired by stonemason Henry Lawson for 10 shillings and six pence (52.5p in today’s currency) in 1662.
The proposed extension of Ripon Cathedral, as seen in this artist’s impression, is one of the main reasons for relocating the font.
It was last moved in 1772 when its current stepped base was constructed.
The proposed move is partly due to the planned extension of the cathedral which, if approved, will require the creation of a new entrance to the ancient building.
A document produced by York archaeologists FAS Heritage says:
“A feasibility study is being undertaken as part of the Ripon Cathedral Renewed project, to explore the possibility of providing a new access through the south aisle south wall of the church. The font is situated within the bay of the proposed access.”
Besides moving the font, the planning application sets out plans to carry out structural repairs on the item.
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It also proposes using York stone pavers to the south nave aisle to replace the font plinth, in keeping with the surrounding York stone paving.
The cathedral has a second 12th century font at the altar in St Peter’s Chapel.
Bishop of Ripon: ‘Farmers give us hope on Plough Sunday’On Plough Sunday, the Bishop of Ripon, the Right Rev Dr Helen-Ann Hartley, reflects on how the traditions of the day can be maintained, despite not being able to gather at the Cathedral.
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the green heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Words by the North American writer and farmer, Wendell Berry.
Well, usually on Plough Sunday I would have been in Ripon Cathedral blessing the plough and setting the mark for the agricultural year ahead. While it’s true that many farmers these days are exponents of the no-till method which is better for the ground, the plough remains an important symbol of our agricultural heritage.
One of the features of this extended pandemic crisis has been a reawakening of connection to land and to asking questions about where our food comes from? These are not new questions, and in many ways they were part of the Brexit landscape way before covid-19 and Zoom became part of our everyday language.
This new year sees us in a post-Brexit landscape but locked-down again. I have just spent a day taking part in the online 2021 Oxford Farming Conference. The theme of this year was ‘Business as Unusual’, a nod to the tension between recognising that a lot has changed, with the desire to get back to normal. In her opening remarks for the conference, the chairman Sally Williams reminded us that in the midst of so much change, ‘farmers kept on farming’. Many people in agriculture that I have spoken with in recent weeks have expressed concern about the virus yes, but confidence in the resilience of people to weather the storm. For all the emphasis on ‘social distancing’ many’s a farmer who has remarked ‘well we are pretty good at social distancing, it’s what we do most days’. But it is noticeable nonetheless that one of the sessions at this year’s OFC was again dedicated to issues of mental health in farming.
Read more:
- The Bishop writes at the end of 2020, reflecting on a year like no other.
- Ripon farming sisters reflect on a difficult year for their industry.
A couple of weeks ago, I took part in the first Zoom session of a new global book club called ‘Fieldwork’. Hosted by the NFU’s Adam Bedford (who himself participated in the Ripon Cathedral Plough Sunday service in 2018), the book under discussion was English Pastoral by Cumbrian shepherd James Rebanks.
It was fascinating to hear James talk about his book, but it was another book he mentioned that caught my interest; a book published in 1940 by Thomas Firbank called I Bought A Mountain. In this book, Firbank describes his purchase, aged 21, of a 2400 acre sheep farm in North Wales. James Rebanks mentioned it because it is a book that essentially describes someone from a non-farming perspective learning about rural life from the people he encountered. The book itself ends with the start of the Second World War, and Firbank’s enlisting to fight in the Coldstream Guards. I mention this as a reminder that we aren’t the first or only generation to face life-changing circumstances. We don’t know yet what a post-covid world will look like; it’s rather more certain that we will need to learn to live with the virus. The language of battle and defeat is distinctly unhelpful.
It is my strong belief that our rural communities are keepers of a narrative that speaks of the greatness of the small (to quote words by the Iona community member John Bell), as well as guardians of the treasures and riches of our land, our earth. After all, the word human comes from the Latin word ‘humus’, meaning earth or ground. I think that plough Sunday points us to that reality; of our own mortality but ultimately of new birth, of possibility and hope grounded in the knowledge that Spring surely does follow Winter. God the Creator is bound up in all of that; God who experienced human failure and defeat, and yet who rose again and who is present with us now in the blazing fire of the Holy Spirit, as sure as the spectacular skies of Winter sunset and sunrise.
Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation:
for in your abundant care you have given us fertile land,
rich soil, the seasons in their courses.
You provide seed for sowing, water, light and warmth
to bring forth the miracle of growth.
You give us skill to work the land,
to prepare and nourish it, that it may be fruitful.
By your blessing,
let this plough be a sign of all that you promise to us.
Prosper the work of our hands,
and provide abundant crops for your people to share.
Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Blessed be God for ever.
God speed the plough.
God speed the plough.
Amen.
Ripon should be ‘meeting place of choice’ says Civic SocietyRipon Civic Society (RCS) has welcomed the move by Harrogate Borough Council to appoint consultants who will draw up a masterplan for the city.
RCS chair Christopher Hughes told the Stray Ferret:
“As one of the founder signatories of the Neighbourhood Plan for Ripon, we look forward to sharing our thoughts with the selected consultants.”
The society believes that people with an informed knowledge of the city, its planning issues and opportunities, should play a key role in guiding Ripon’s future direction. The city has suffered this year with the pandemic, with both the Ripon Spa Hotel and the Old Deanery closing down.
With a fee of £85,000 for a 12-month contract, consultants will be tasked with devising an “inspiring and innovative” vision that will be at the heart of the Ripon Renewal Project.
The contract is due to start on January 10.
Ripon Civic Society believes heritage attractions can help make the city a meeting place of choice
The move to develop a masterplan for the city comes at a time when future growth is on the horizon.
The major Barracks scheme known as Clotherholme will see Homes England deliver 1,300 homes in a number of phases on the outskirts of Ripon.
In the city centre, Ripon’s ancient Cathedral is planning its most significant development in centuries, with a £6 million extension, designed to provide modern facilities and additional space.
Mr Hughes pointed out:
“The society has always believed in adopting an holistic approach, which takes account of the things that make Ripon special, such as its heritage assets, Market Square and spa quarter.”
He added:
“There is also a need to look at how people arrive in Ripon – and how they move around when they get here in this very walkable city.
“If we get it right, there is the opportunity to position our city as the meeting place of choice.”
Read more:
- Why are elves hiding in Ripon?
- £132,000 grants boost for Ripon nature reserve
- District’s market traders lambast councillor’s letter
The appointed consultants will have to set out “clear and robust” delivery timescales, funding options and a business case for Harrogate Borough Council to use to bid for money for projects.
The contract brief says:
“The aim of this project is to maximise the opportunities within Ripon which will regenerate the city and boost the local economy.”