, a
remnant of the actual fabric, in the shape of an old cottage with an
external staircase, which stands behind the wall to the west of the
public garden that fronts the north side of the church. In the
above-mentioned wall is an Early English doorway, with a dripstone
adorned with the nailhead moulding. The door has a flat-arched wooden
frame, the spandrels of which are carved with _fleurs-de-lys_, while the
wooden tympanum above has Perpendicular panelling. This doorway is not,
perhaps, a relic of the Palace. It is not in its original position, and
indeed is said to have come originally from St. Mary Magdalene's
Hospital. Several of the old houses adjoining the Cathedral on the south
side, and along St. Agnes-gate, may possibly have been inhabited by the
Prebendaries of the Second Collegiate foundation, but the stone-roofed
house adjoining Bondgate Green Bridge is the only one in Ripon which can
be identified with a mediaeval prebend--that of Thorp, and even here the
existing fabric can scarcely be pre-Reformation. St. John's
Hospital,[31] whose inmates for several centuries have been women, was
unfortunately rebuilt in 1869, but the modern chapel (served by one of
the cathedral clergy) retains a bell of 1663. The old Grammar
School,[32] which stood at the foot of the steps from St. Agnes-gate to
the Minster, has been pulled down since 1872.

Meanwhile the Minster itself had been undergoing restoration--in 1829
and the following years at the hands of Blore, when upwards of L3000
were spent, and from 1862 to 1870 at the hands of Sir G. Gilbert Scott,
and at a cost of about L30,000.

From the eighth century up to 1836 Ripon had been in the diocese of
York. In that year was created the modern diocese of Ripon, and the
church thus attained to cathedral rank. It had, however, always had some
pretension to that rank, not merely as a mother-church but because (up
to 1836) the Archbishops had their throne in the choir; indeed, it is
styled a cathedral in documents of 1537 and 1546. The diocese is
composed of parts of Yorkshire taken from the sees of York and Chester,
and included Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, Halifax and Huddersfield, until
in 1888 a portion including Halifax and Huddersfield was taken away to
form part of a new diocese of Wakefield. There are three archdeaconries:
those of Richmond, Ripon, and Craven. The first is a survival, in a
diminished form, of the ancient archdeaconry of the same name; the
others are