04/09/2026
A little Friday morning history on one of the premises around our market place here in Ripon, and a few photos of "Then & Now"
Have a fabulous Friday and enjoy the read 📖 and photos.......... 📖
🌟 1 Market Place (East) 🌟
This burgage at the corner of the Market Place and Kirkgate was once much larger than at present because of 20thC widening at Kirkgatehead. In 1672 it is shown as being taxed for 6 hearths and being occupied by Thomas Hebden who was a grocer. His ownership is confirmed by the 1675 Burgage Survey where it is said to have consisted of one toft, one croft and five shops and to have been inherited by Thomas from his father George. However, it would appear that soon after this, Thomas must have sold or possibly mortgaged the southern part of the property because in 1686 one Thomas Thompson sold this part of the property for £100 to John Sedgwick, mercer.
Sedgwick, who was to be Mayor of Ripon in 1701-2 and 1715-16, was the nephew of Thomas Hebden.
Thomas Hebden died in 1691 and after the death of his widow the northern part of the property where he himself had been living also went to Sedgwick, so the property was again united. John Sedgwick died in 1720 and the property was left to his widow for life, and afterwards to his four daughters. His son received only a bottle of w**e which sounds rather like parental disapproval although it may have been merely that the son had received his share of the family property earlier.
The Average Award of 1747 confirms that the property was held by Sedgwick's heirs although the widow and one of the daughters had died. In 1764 the three surviving daughters and the husbands of two of them sold the property for £400 to Christopher Braithwaite, mercer. The deed refers to four shops, two gardens or orchards and two stables, and the property is said to be occupied by four tenants, one of whom, Sarah Haddon, owned the Unicorn Inn next door. The date 1765 found on the gable end of the property when it was being demolished in 1931 probably records the rebuilding in brick by Braithwaite, the new owner.
Soon after this Christopher Braithwaite changed his name to Oxley as a result of an inheritance, and then in 1776 sold this property for £750 to John Raggett of Markenfield Hall.
J. C. ETHERINGTON,
LATE
J. BATEMAN & SON,
LINEN & WOOLLEN DRAPERS.
TAILORS, HATTERS, HOSIERS, SILK MERCERS, &c.
Market Place, RIPON.
Probably because of the rebuilding, the premises then consisted of two houses again occupied by tenants. The Humphries Survey of 1800 showed the property owned by Widow Raggett. It then passed to their son, another John, and was left in his will in 1808 to his widow and his brother for life, after which it was to go to his two nephews. However, only one of these nephews survived to enjoy the property and so it came into the possession of the other, Thomas Raggett, a London merchant, who in 1816 sold it to Elizabeth Sophia Lawrence of Studley Royal. (The price paid, £1890, included another Raggett property).
The two houses on this site are said to have been rented at this time by Samuel Coates the Younger (*) and James Morley, surgeon. The property was to remain part of the Studley estate for the rest of the century for most of which it was to be occupied by members of the Bateman family who were tailors and drapers. The first member of the family to feature was Joseph who was admitted as a freeman in 1821. Some time near the end of the century the Batemans were replaced as tenants by James C. Etherington, also a draper.
In 1903 the Marquess of Ripon, the owner of the Studley estate, sold the property to Sir Christopher Furness, later Lord Furness of Grantley Hall, who had made his money out of shipping. After the death of Lord Furness his son began to reduce his connection with the area and sold the property in 1919 to the partners of Becket and Co, the Leeds-based private bank. In the following year this bank was amalgamated with what was later known as the Westminster Bank.
The Bank did not themselves occupy the property at this time.
A trade directory of 1922 shows that the Etheringtons had been followed in the property by Dixon Stephenson who described himself as a “robe specialist”, but a 1927 directory omits No.1 Market Place altogether. However NatWest Group archives reveal that the property was let for £120 per annum from 1924 to 1930 to a Captain and Mrs. Hartley, so it seems that they must have been
Storefront Facade
Signboard: Drapers Etherington's Costumiers
Side Sign: Etherington's
J. C. ETHERINGTON,
(Late BATEMAN & SON),
Costumier, Ladies' and Gent's Outfitter,
Silk Mercer and General Draper.
New and Up-to-Date High-Class and Reliable Goods
IN ALL DEPARTMENTS.
DAY & EVENING GOWNS.
WEDDING & MOURNING ORDERS.
AGENT FOR THE FOLLOWING HIGH-CLASS SPECIALITIES:
Viyella, Worth's Corsets, Dr. Jaeger's Woollen Clothing,
Dr. Thomalla's Hygienic Under-clothing,
Lincoln and Bennett's Hats, Ford's Eureka Dress Shirts.
DIXON'S,
The Blouse and Robe Specialists,
We invite your inspection of our
Coat Department.
where we have some exceptional
Bargains.
— Dixon's.
running the Blue Bird cafe which was demolished in 1931 as a result of the Ripon Corporation scheme for widening Kirkgatehead.
The corner property was subsequently rebuilt further back in the typical bank style of the period and in 1932 the Westminster Bank moved there from the premises it formerly occupied in Fishergate.
The Bank occupied the premises until after its amalgamation in 1971 with the National Provincial Bank; the newly amalgamated bank, the National Westminster, decided to give up No.1 and concentrate on its site on the south side of the Market Place.
Since the 1970s the property has been occupied by the Skipton Building Society.
Jean Denton & Wendy Hunter.
(* In 1771 a Samuel Coates had founded the local bank which later became known as Coates, Pearson and Coates with its headquarters in Knaresborough and a branch in Ripon, and in 1784 Samuel Coates Jr. was listed in Bailey’s Directory as a linen draper in Ripon, so it is quite possible that the Batemans who began to occupy the property in the early 19thC took over premises already in use as a draper’s shop).
📷 Number 1 Market Place East then and now