Hospital of St Anne
Grade II* listed
The hospital is on High St Agnesgate. To find it, walk along the south side of the cathedral, turn right at the south door and follow the path and steps down to the road. Turn right and the hospital is on your left.
Watercolour by E W Haslehust, born in Walthamstow, Essex in 1866, died in 1949. Studied at Slade School of Art. The view shows the chancel arch on the left and the south wall of the chancel.
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The building on the right is a block of eight almshouses built in 1869, partly on the site of the old hospital (the massingdew) which occupied the area now covered by the lawn. Through the chancel arch the altar can be seen under the east window, beyond the central stoup. The seat and bird bath are modern additions!​
The hospital of St Anne was founded on a small plot of land on High St Agnesgate, (which, in the past, had been called St Annesgate) between the river skell and the cathedral. There is no foundation document and the earliest records are from the C15th, but the archeology suggests a late C12th building. The founder is thought to have been from a local family, possibly the Neville family from Raby Castle. The fact that the hospital was called a Maison de Dieu would suggest someone with Norman roots.​
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1853 map of St Anne's
1891 map of St Anne's
maps courtesy of National Library of Scotland
​The map of 1853 shows the plan of the hospital of St Anne, little changed from when it was built in the C12th. The hospital was in the nave of the chapel. It is marked on the 1853 map as "Maison de Dieu" (House of God). The founding family will have spoken Norman French which the local Anglo Saxons did not understand. So they said it as they heard it and, in Ripon, the hospital was called the massingdew!
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In the early hospital the accommodation will have been an open dormitory in which every resident had a view of the altar in the Chancel, so they could all see and hear Mass every day. By the time of the 1853 map the chancel is called St Anne's chapel and is derelict. The dormitory accommodation may have evolved with partitions between the beds, a ceiling over each bed and eventually a door to each "cell" opening onto a central corridor leading to the chapel at the east end or a door to the outside at the west end.
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Rev. Lukis's sketch and plan of the chapel published in 1872, shows the old chapel before the demolition of the nave in 1868. While the structure appears to be accurate the internal arrangements are "supposed". 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. There were also two beds for travellers who were entitled to one night's stay. Note 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 and that is how we can see them today. At this time, the hospital accommodated eight women but it is unclear if male travellers were welcomed. The cells would 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 of the nave. 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). It may have been added later or possibily rebuilt.
When the north window in the chancel was blocked up, a shield, surmounted by a cross, was inserted. The cross, the author thought, was a cross from the gable. He also noted a 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, neither of which can now be seen.
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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 leant on the founding family but 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 give 5 acres of land, also in Bell Furrs, so the rental income could support those in the hospital. William Aislabie 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 old chapel hospital was relieved of its inmates, either to a hospital infirmary built onto the chapel, or to newly built almshouses. The small size of the site of St Anne's hospital, together with a lack of funds, will have prevented such developments until the 1860s
Coat of Arms: Neville, Earls of Westmorland and Barons of Raby.
The coat of arms under the cross on the left could relate to the Neville family.
SAINT OR
ANNE'S MAISON
HOSPITAL DE DIEU
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​​ Was rebuilt A.D. 1869,
by the munificence of
Miss Elizabeth Greenwood
of West Lodge in this City
and of her late Sister
Miss Caroline Greenwood,
whose late Brother
Henry Greenwood Esq.
had previously given 1000 Pounds
in augmentation of the
existing endowments
of the Charity.
West Lodge was a significant house on Cant Lane, now College Road.
£1000 in 1860 is over £100,000 today.
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The plaque on the wall of the present almshouses records the source of the funds to build them. Before the days of social security, the income of the hospital not only contributed to the maintenance of the building but also provided a weekly income for each of the residents. Initially there were eight new almshouses, reflecting the number cared for in the massingdew. Each new almshouse was little larger than a cell in the old, so during the last century each pair of new almshouses were knocked through to provide four two roomed houses, one room facing the cathedral, the other facing the river.
The brick building on the right shows two of the four 1869 almshouses at the hospital of St Anne which looked south across the river Skell. In 1869 the block consisted of four almshouses looking north to the cathedral, and four, which backed on to the north facing four, looking south over the river Skell. Last century each north facing almshouse was knocked through to join it to the corresponding south facing almshouse, making a total of four almshouses.
The white house, centre, has been built on the track leading up from the ford, which crossed the river in front of it. The ford marked the entry into Ripon from Boroughbridge and points east. Pedestrians had use of a footbrige suspended to the side of the ford, known as Archer bridge or the chain bridge. Both the pedestian bridge and the ford were replaced by New Bridge, built in 1810.
Medieval stoup for Holy Water placed under the centre of chancel arch. It is octagonal and of sandstone. the plain shields are missing from two of the eight sides indicating it may have stood against a wall.
Piscina for disposal of water used in sacred services. Under a small south window in chancel.
Looking through the chancel arch into the chancel (labelled chapel on the maps). The altar is at the far end under the bricked-up east window and the piscina is to the right of the altar, on the south facing wall.
Looking through the chancel arch towards the west where the nave used to be. The bushes and grassed area reflect the extent of the hospital, Maison de Dieu (massingdew) The stoup for holy water is in the archway near it's original position in the corridor which crossed the chapel north to south in front of the chancel arch, between chancel and nave.
Doorway opening south from the unusual north south corridor which ran across the chapel between the chancel and the nave.
Chancel window looking south​
Fireplace in the remains of the north wall of the nave.