Built into a buttress on the north-west corner of the north transept, high above ground.

The buttress dates from the twelfth century, so presumably these pieces were built in then. The first mention, which includes drawings of three of the four faces based on tracings, is in an unpublished letter by G. F. Browne, dated 21 June 1883, in the Dean and Chapter Archives of Ripon Cathedral now held in Leeds University Library (MS Dep. 1980/ 1/104, figs. A, B, C) . Browne believed that he was examining imposts of the original door of the Anglo-Saxon church.

St Peter and St Wilfrid

Incomplete and weathered

On the west face of the buttress, two lengths of a string-course are visible, 9aA on the left and 9bA on the right. Each length also has one adjacent side visible: 9aD facing north and 9bB facing south towards the cathedral. The probable lengths suggest that these could have been imposts. Both are decorated with interlace with highly modelled strands and are edged by single flat-band mouldings. The narrower faces are both more weathered than the broad faces.

9aA (broad) has five registers of complete pattern C; 9aD (narrow), its adjacent face, has five registers of turned pattern F with included terminals.

9bA (broad) has five registers of spiralled half pattern A. This pattern is less dense than its companion, and has a heavier strand to compensate. Its adjacent face, 9bB (narrow), has five registers of complete pattern F.

Adcock (1974, I, 93) has pointed to the fundamental unity of the two designs on these imposts, with all four faces having five divisions emphasised by the use of glides. These imposts are in fact central to a group she calls 'the mature sculptured interlace of the Ripon area', a group which includes within it Ripon 2, above, and crosses from north Yorkshire: Croft 1, Cundall/Aldborough 1, Easby 1, Kirby Hill 12, Masham 5, Melsonby 1, and Wycliffe 3, 8 and 9 (Lang 2001, ills. 151, 160–3, 181, 204–6, 210–12, 369–70, 635–7, 654–61, 1109, 1116, 1120), as well as examples from the West Riding: Otley 2 and Ilkley 4a–b (Ills. 345, 347, 349, 351 and 568). These are connected by their unit measure (3.5 cm or 4 cm) as well as by the use of particular patterns and pattern ideas. It is interesting that Browne in his letter of 21 June 1883 had already noted a comparison with the impost from Kirby Hill (cf. Lang 2001, fig. 16). Adcock takes issue with Collingwood, who placed these imposts late in his Anglian series, pointing out that he missed one pattern completely and misunderstood another (1974, I, 114). The Taylors (rightly) said of the Ripon imposts, that 'they appear to us to be of same high quality and early type as those at Breedon' (Taylor, J. and Taylor, H. M. 1966, 47). They should also be considered in the same breath as the other Wilfridian foundation of Hexham, especially nos. 36–38, two fragments of string-course and one of an impost, also decorated with interlace/twists, though in a different Bernician style (Cramp 1984, 191, pls. 185. 1016–1021). The link with the shaft and architectural fragments from Wycliffe is particularly interesting, as Wycliffe may have been the church of a bishop's vill or a monasterium (Lang 2001, 273).

Late eighth to early ninth century

Browne 1880–4b, cxiii; Allen and Browne 1885, 353; Allen 1890, 305, 306; Allen 1891, 229–30, nos. 2, 3, figs. 11, 23; Browne 1897, 107, 112–13, 282–3, fig. 3; Hallett 1901, 46–7; Allen 1903, 226, 246, 258, nos. 587, 638, 661; Collingwood 1912, 122, 130; Collingwood 1915a, 233–5, 265, 267, 287, figs. d–f on 234; Clapham 1927, 228; Collingwood 1927, 58, 109; Collingwood 1932, 48; Taylor, H. M. and Taylor, J. 1965, I, 12, II, 518; Taylor, J. and Taylor, H. M. 1966, 47; Adcock 1974, I, 92–5, 114, 115n, figs. 22a, 23a–c, II, pls. 13a–b, 14a–b; Cramp 1974, 120, 134, pl. XId; Cramp 1984, 17n, 106; Lang 1991, 23, 154, 169, 171; Cramp 1992, 100, 102, pl. XId; Bailey 1993, 10; Hall 1995, 26; Mac Lean 1998, 189; Lang 2001, 27, 135, ill. 1197; Coatsworth 2006, 22, 24, pls. 6a, 6b

[1] The following are general references to the Ripon stones: Allen 1890, 293; Collingwood 1932, 48; Brown 1937, 95; Mee 1941, 306; Bailey and Cramp 1988, 16; Lang 1991, 17, 84; Hall 1995, 15; Hadley 2000a, 235.

[2] The following is an unpublished manuscript reference to Ripon 9a–b: Letter dated 21 June 1883 from the Rev. G. F. Browne to Dean W. R. Freemantle, with three drawings. Ripon Cathedral, Dean and Chapter Archives, MS Dep. 1980/1/104 (held in Leeds University Library).