CrockerTravellers 2015: Ripley

What a find stumbling upon Ripley yesterday. We had a wonderful although expensive meal here last night and an impressive breakfast. The inn we are staying at is just great and we decided to stay an extra night.

The Boars Head

Outside the castle.

The building above is the new part of the castle built in Victorian times.

This is the oldest part of the castle- the gatehouse built in 1400's.

This tower was Tudor and is in almost original condition.

It is the most interesting village. The story is.......

In 1357 Edward III was saved from being gored by a boar whilst hunting in York by Thomas Ingilby who lived in a manor house at Ripley. Thomas killed the beast, and earned himself a knighthood and family crest in the process.

Thus began the dynasty of Ingilby which is still going strong today. They own the village, the inn and the surrounding village. The present family have been most entrepreneurial and are involved in many and varied income raising ventures. We did a tour of the house and the guide was excellent in bringing their history and the history of each historical period to life.

There was Sir William who held high office and served Henry VIII, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I through some of their darkest days. Two of his sons toured the countryside inspiring rebellion: they were 'the most dangerous papists in the North of England'. The Blessed Francis Ingilby paid the ultimate price: he was executed in 1586 when as a priest he returned to England from exile.

In a time when being Catholic was extremely dangerous the family although publicly Protestant retained their Catholic beliefs. A priest hole was discovered in the panelling in the tudor tower in the 1960's.

James I stayed at the castle in 1603 on his way to London for his coronation. It is possible that by 1605 the Ingilbys were plotting to kill him: nine of the eleven known conspirators of the Gunpowder Plot were close relations or associates of the Ingilby Family.

'Trooper' Jane Ingilby held Oliver Cromwell prisoner overnight in the castle's library after the Battle of Marston Moor.There are musket ball indents on the gatehouse and the church wall. It is thought that this is where the Parliamentarians executed some Royalist prisoners whilst at Ripley.

Sir John Ingilby rebuilt the castle but lost his wife. His son, a notable and colourful eccentric, rebuilt Ripley and endowed it with a huge Hotel de Ville.

In 2009 the Ingilby family celebrated 700 years at Ripley Castle. For any family to occupy the same house for 700 years is truly remarkable. All those letters, deeds and documents that tend to get lost, damaged or thrown away when you move from one house to another have survived, and give a unique record of the family's history, their births, marriages and deaths, their trials and their tribulations, during the course of the last seven centuries. It gives some indication how the family survived, despite plagues, civil wars, attempts at regicide, religious and political conspiracies, broken marriages, inept heirs and, yes, numerous periods of dire economic hardship!

The grounds of the castle were amazing

They used this to create power in the 19th century

All Saints church in Ripley dates from the late 1300s (probably built in 1390).

The church replaced an earlier chapel on a nearby site, which had suffered from subsidence, and became known as 'the Sinking Chapel.' Some items were transferred to the new church from the Sinking Chapel, including the effigy chest tomb of Sir Thomas Ingilby (1290-1369) and his wife Lady Edeline. The effigies of Sir Thomas and his wife lie on top of the tomb, with Sir Thomas dressed in full armour. Their heads rest on a wild boar, in a reference to the incident where Thomas saved Edward III from such an animal.

In the chuchyard is a weeping cross.

Although the place name Weeping Cross exists in Stafford, Banbury, and Shrewsbury, Ripley is thought to have the only surviving physical example of a weeping cross. The cross is gone, but it would have fitted into the base, which has eight recesses, probably for the heads of kneeling devotees. The term 'weeping' would suggest an expression of grief or remorse. It may be that the cross was used during the festival of Corpus Christi, to lament the death of Christ. Or, it could have been for the public atonement of sins or crimes.

Another interesting feature are the marks on the east wall of the church, from musket balls fired by Oliver Cromwell's troops, when they executed Royalist prisoners after the Battle of Marston Moor (1644).

The village is part of the Ripley Estate and was torn down and re-built between 1827 and 1854, in the style of villages in Alsace that Sir William Amcotts-Ingilby had seen while travelling. The terraced stone cottages are said to be in an Alsatian style.