Passage To Parliament

A recently restored town house in the shadow of Ripon Minster offered its owner a voice in Parliamentary elections. James Legard unravels its development.

- James Legard

SOME old houses are special because they have remained almost unchanged since they were built, carrying the tastes and lifestyles of our predecessors into the present. Others derive their interest from precisely the opposite characteristic. Having been built, rebuilt, remodelled and restyled, they are the cumulative result of centuries of growth and change, each successive layer documenting a distinct historical moment.

St Agnes Lodge, in the small cathedral city of Ripon in North Yorkshire, quite definitely falls into the second category. In spite of its relatively modest scale, it intrigues from the very first glimpse. Its long, low, early- Georgian façade forms the centrepiece of High St Agnesgate, a quiet lane that runs between the medieval minster church to the north and the River Skell to the south. Idiosyncratically punctuated by a series of round porthole windows that frame a boldly rusticated front-door surround, it clearly has ‘polite’ pretensions (Fig 2). These are, however, belied by a typically vernacular roof, its steep pitch hinting at earlier origins.

These origins remain obscure, but the site of St Agnes Lodge is known to have been one the city’s ancient burgage plots. These were established in the late 12th and early 13th century and, in exchange for an annual payment, brought certain privileges, such as the right to trade and to participate in the town’s political life.