Hospital of St Anne

Rev. Lukis's sketch and plan of the chapel published in 1872, shows the hospital before its demolition in 1868.  While the structure appears to be accurate the internal arrangements are "supposed".  But George Parker, in his book "A Day in the City of Ripon" (pub. 1890), states that "Within the massingdew are one Priest and eight poor folkes, men and women, the which in time past have been of honest behaviour."  "Also, there are......two common beds for every true travelling man that have noe spending. and there he may be eased one day and one night in fulfilling of the seaven workes of mercy."

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It was fairly unusual for a small hospital to accommodate both men and women but those that did, like the early period of St Anne's, had arrangements which ensured a strict segregation.  So there was a central partition with a men's side and a women's side.  The accommodation for the priest was set apart from the dormitories and the four rooms each had a fireplace.  When the two sides were each divided into four private "cells" the main fireplaces were blocked up.  At the time just before the demolition, the hospital accommodated eight women but it is unclear if male travellers were welcomed.  The cells may have opened onto a central corridor leading to the chapel or the outside.  The piscina in the bottom right corner of the chapel is labelled, as is the stoup for Holy Water in the corridor between dormitories and chapel.  The ruins of the chancel, labelled the chapel, are still in place and are interesting to look around.

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George Poole in a book called "Churches of Yorkshire", published in 1844, quotes a brief account of St Anne's as it was seen about 20 years before the demolition.  It states that, for many years, the hospital had been under the management of the Mayor and Cotporation of Ripon, as trustees.  (Management has now passed to the Ripon Municipal Charity, a small group of trustees who oversee the running of the almshouses.)  The nave was divided into a number of small rooms occupied by eight "almswomen" selected by the Corporation.

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The author is scathing about the treatment of the building he saw in 1844.  He states that no external feature of interest remains.  All the windows of the nave had been walled up as had two of the three doorways, leaving only the south doorway.  The whole had been covered in a thick coat of rough cast and nothing of the original stone surface could be seen, so could not be dated.  However, he states the massive nave walls and the pitch of the roof indicate an early period matching the chancel arch, late C12th.  There was no indication of a bell turret and the cross on the eastern gable had gone.  The chancel he says, from the style of the windows, is Perpendicular (C14th or 15th).  It may have been added later or possibly rebuilt.

 

When the north window in the chapel was blocked up, pieces of stone were used from elsewhere in the building.  One had carved upon it a shield and another was a stone cross.  The shield was well worn by the time the sketch was drawn but it appears to show a cross ( X )  on the right and vague marks on the left. The stone cross, the author thought, was from the gable end of the chapel or the hospital.  He also noted another shield, charged with three crescents, carved on a bracket on the north side of the east window.  He included in his book, Churches of Yorkshire, a sketch of both items.  The three crescents can no longer be seen but the cross and shield are in the blocked up window in the north wall of the chapel facing the road.

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In a different book called  "A Day in the City of Ripon" published in 1890, the author, George Parker, suggests the three crescents are the coat of arms of the Boynton family who lived in Boynton Hall which became part of Ripon Teacher Training College.  The family also occupies Hollin Hall to the south of Ripon.  The family estate was in Burton Agness.

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George Parker also commented on the cross with the engraved shield and armorial bearings.  These are on a slab used to block the window in the north side of the chancel wall with the engraving facing the road.  The cross he suggests is a gable cross and the initials S S are those of Sir Solomen Swale of North Stainley.

 

St Anne's was established with no endowment of land or buildings by which it could generate an income.  In the early days it probably relied on the founding family, and possibly those whose coats of arms were engraved on the chapel walls are likely to have been donors.  Later, gifts of land were made.  In 1680 1.5 acres of meadow land in Bell Furrs were left in the will of William Gibson, for the support of sixteen widows in the hospital.  In 1757, Isabella Lakin gave five acres of land, also in Bell Furrs, so the rental income could support those in the hospital.  William Aislabie (son of John who had the obelisk built and the market square paved) gave just over an acre in Bell Furrs at about the same time.  (There is a lock on Ripon canal, a short distance from St Anne's, named Bell Furrows.  It is likely it was land around this area that was given.)                                

 

​​​From Tudor times many hospitals were replaced by almshouses and the original hospital building was relieved of its inmates.  The empty building was often retained as a chapel (as with St Mary Magdalen and St John the Baptist hospitals in Ripon).  The small size of the site of St Anne's hospital, together with a lack of funds, will have prevented such developments at St Anne's until the 1860s.