Final race of season at Ripon Racecourse
For racegoers, the 2020 season at Ripon has been a non-starter, with the action on course staged behind closed doors.
Today the lockdown season comes to a close with a seven-race card.
The COVID-19 pandemic shut down horseracing across the UK in March – a month before the course was due to hold its first meeting of the season.
When a curtailed calendar finally got underway on the evening of 20 June it, and all subsequent meetings, had to be held without racegoers present.
Before the coronavirus crisis dealt the horseracing industry a giant blow, Ripon’s garden course, in its 120th year at the Boroughbridge Road venue, was looking forward to a 17-meeting season.
Empty racegoer car parks tell their own story
In a normal year, the track attracts thousands of people through its gates – both local and from further afield – with the highlight of its calendar being the Great St Wilfrid Handicap in August.
As the season concludes with the 17.40 Lloyd Land Rover Ripon Apprentice Handicap, the public’s return to sporting events remains delayed, following announcements by the government.
The British Horseracing Authority (BHA), in a statement earlier this week, said that racecourses across the UK are facing a loss in revenue of between £250 million and £300 million this year, adding:
“Our industry is now facing a severe threat. We are the second most attended spectator sport in the country. Without the millions of people who normally enjoy a day at the races, many people’s jobs are at serious risk, as are the businesses they work in.
“We have kept the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments updated on the financial impact of COVID and the effects on the rural economies in which so many of our racing staff live and work.”
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Before the first behind-closed-doors meeting in June, clerk of the course and managing director of Ripon Racecourse Company, James Hutchinson told the Stray Ferret:
“There’s no point in looking back at what didn’t happen, we’d rather look forward and hope that it won’t be long before we can open our gates to racegoers once more.”
With the next season seven months away, all involved with running the course, are hoping the roar of the Ripon crowd will be heard yet again in 2021.
Karen takes to her bike after Ripley Pigfest cancellationAfter setting up in the face of a crisis 20 years ago, Ripley Scarecrow Pigfest has been cancelled this year – because of the pandemic.
The event was due to celebrate its 20th anniversary with plans to stage the biggest and best festival to date.
It was launched in 2001 to attract people back to the village and wider countryside in the wake of the foot and mouth crisis. Now, in an ironic twist, another crisis means it will not go ahead this year.
Organiser Karen Evans, who lives near Ripon, came up with the idea for a scarecrow hunt, featuring pig-headed characters with imaginative names given by their creators.
For consistency of look she has, in the previous 19 years, made the papier mache heads for each Pigfest character – providing a subtle nod to Ripley’s boar’s head emblem.
Karen told the Stray Ferret:
“Unfortunately, we have become victims of our own success and couldn’t risk public safety, with hundreds of people in the confined space of the village.”
Boarglar Bill, one of the imaginatively-named characters who has featured at Ripley Scarecrow Pigfest
It has also brought another financial setback for the All Saints’ Church fabric fund which, over the years, has benefitted from donations of thousands of pounds raised through the entry fee for participants.
Karen, who is a warden at the Ripley church, pointed out:
“Combined with the fact that we have not been able to have the Wednesday cafe at All Saints’ open this summer, we have seen a loss of revenue totalling around £11,000.”
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Rather than bemoan the losses, she decided to literally get on her bike to provide another means of raising money, both for the church and the Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre at Harrogate Hospital, which is dear to her heart, having been treated there herself.
Between September 21 and 24, Karen and friend Judith Nickols will do a 137-mile sponsored cycle ride starting from Whitehaven on the west coast and finishing in Tynemouth on the east coast.
Both are keen cyclists and are training hard in readiness for the challenging and hilly coast to coast course.
Anybody wanting to sponsor Karen can find further details about her fundraising for All Saints’ Church Ripley and The Sir Robert Ogden Macmillan Centre on her justgiving page.
Ripon heritage attractions reopen to the publicTwo of Ripon’s key tourist and heritage attractions have reopened their doors to the public and a third will re-open next month.
The Workhouse Museum & Garden and Prison & Police Museum, reopened yesterday (Wednesday) and the Courthouse Museum is expected to be open again from August 1.
Helen Thornton, director of Ripon Museum Trust, said:
“I am so excited to be able to offer a warm welcome to visitors once again. The whole team here has worked extremely hard to get ready to provide an enjoyable and safe museum experience.”
She added:
“I hope people will be inspired by the fascinating history we have at Ripon museums and will have fun with their families exploring our beautiful gardens and discovering the amazing stories within our walls.”
The museums will open six days a week, closing on Mondays for a deep clean, as part of a package of measures designed to ensure the safety of visitors, volunteers and staff.
Numbers of people allowed in at any one time are being limited. Visitors must have pre-booked and paid for their tickets and should present their email ticket on a mobile phone or a printed copy at museum receptions.
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Ripon Museum Trust is also introducing additional cleaning and hygiene measures on its three sites, with social distancing markers in place to help visitors keep a safe distance apart.
Anybody displaying symptoms of coronavirus is asked not to visit.
The measures have been taken following government guidance and following Public Health England recommendations. The trust has received accreditation from Visit England, which recognises that government and industry Covid-19 guidelines are being followed, ensuring processes are in place to maintain cleanliness and aid social distancing.
Visitors to the Workhouse Museum will be able to purchase refreshments and can bring a picnic to eat in the museum’s grounds.
Ripon Museum Trust previously received £40,100 from The National Lottery Heritage Fund to safeguard its heritage buildings and provide much-needed support for essential costs during the coronavirus crisis.
Fountains Abbey’s gentle re-awakening after lockdownFountains Abbey, the UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the National Trust’s leading attractions, is having a gentle re-awakening with a limit of 1,000 visitors a day allowed to visit the abbey ruins, parkland and Studley Royal water garden.
Since re-opening on 8th June, people have been able to pre-book on a Friday for a visit in the following week and the popularity of the site has seen it quickly booked up for all of the days that it has been open so far.
Entry is via the visitors centre from 10am until 4pm, with the site closing at 5pm.
A National Trust spokesperson said:
“We knew that once we started a gradual opening of our gardens and parklands, tickets for our places would be very popular; particularly with such fine weather. We’ve made careful decisions about which gardens and parklands can open, and we have limited their capacity to ensure everyone can adhere to social distancing to maintain the safety of our visitors, staff and volunteers, which remains our top priority.”
The spokesperson, added:
“We are so thankful that our members and supporters have stood by us as we work through these unprecedented times, and we ask for their continued support as we make this gradual transition a success so we can get back to offering nature, beauty and history for everyone.”
Further changes to social distancing announced by the government on Monday, have meant the National Trust is able to take bookings once more for the 14 holiday cottages and houses located on the Fountains estate.
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The abbey was founded by Cistercian monks in the 12th century. Following the dissolution of the monasteries ordered by Henry VIII, the site became the largest monastic ruins in Britain.
The Studley Royal water garden, with the river Skell running through it, was created in the 18th century by John Aislabie, – a former Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was expelled from the Whig Parliament in 1720 for his part in the South Sea Bubble financial scandal.
Brimham Rocks, the other National Trust owned property in the Harrogate district is now open daily from 8am until 9pm, although there is limited space available in the car park and the trust advises those who cannot find a parking space, to return at another time and not park on the roadside, to avoid blocking access for emergency vehicles.
Ripon Workhouse Museum to open gardens experienceNo museums in the Harrogate district will be re-opening their indoor facilities to the public on 4th July, but there will be one new museum experience in Ripon from today (Friday 26th June).
The dates for re-opening of museums in Harrogate, Knaresborough, Ripon and Nidderdale, are to be confirmed – in part because volunteers involved in the day to day running of the facilities need to be available.
However, Ripon Workhouse Museum, run by charity Ripon Museum Trust, will re-open its gardens to the public from today.
The ‘Inside Out Museum Trail’ will see the gardens of the former workhouse in Allhallowgate, open on selected days during June and July, with pre-booked timed slots to ensure that visits are spread out through the day so the site does not exceed a safe capacity.
The trail will help visitors discover features of the Workhouse Museum from the outside as well as an opportunity of enjoying the Front Garden, the Master’s Garden and the Victorian Kitchen Garden.
The Royal Pump Room in Harrogate remain closed
The museum buildings will not be open to the public, but a peak inside the windows will give a glimpse of how people lived in the workhouse. Some of the exhibits, photographs of life in the Workhouse and information boards have been moved nearer to the inside of the museum windows, so people can see them from the outside.
Director of Ripon Museum Trust, Helen Thornton, said:
“We wanted to open up our beautiful outdoor spaces at the Workhouse Museum for all to enjoy as soon as it was allowed and safe to do so. The Workhouse site has so much to tell us about how the poor lived and inspires us to think about these issues today.”
The Prison and Police Museum and The Courthouse Museum which are also run by Ripon Museum Trust, but re-opening dates are yet to be announced.
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There is also no opening date for the Nidderdale Museum in Pateley Bridge.
Museum chair Sue Welch, said:
“Our re-opening date is under discussion, but it won’t be July 4, as we have some matters to resolve first regarding staffing.”
A spokesman for Harrogate Borough Council, said that no dates have yet been agreed for the reopening of the Royal Pump Room, Knaresborough Castle and Courthouse Museum and Mercer Gallery.