A painting …..the new village …… and the search for a pub …. the Ripley story

 This is Sir William Amcotts Ingilby who sits above the staircase of the Boar’s Head in Ripley.

Sir William Amcotts Ingilby and his hat, undated

To my shame I have I have never bothered to find out his name despite frequent stays at the hotel over the years.

The Boar's Head, 2023

In my defence the descriptor on the frame is difficult to read, and so yesterday I emailed the Boar’s Head asking for his name.

And in matter of hours they replied that “The gentleman in the painting, as you go up the stairs, is Sir William Amcotts Ingilby (1783- 1854).  He was an eccentric member of the family, prone to wearing dreadful hats and well known for wandering around in his dressing gown with little on underneath.

It was Sir William who rebuilt Ripley in the 1800’s, replacing the old thatched and dilapidated cottages with the lovely stone cottages you see today. 

Ripley is known as a model estate village as it was based on a French town Sir William admired in Alsace Lorraine. It is courtesy of Sir William that we have a Hôtel de Ville instead of a town hall and the many overhanging eaves and arched windows, typical of a northern French village”.

This was enough to set me off looking for more to the story, and more there was.

The village was rebuilt in 1830, which according to Piggott’s Commercial directory saw the old houses being “taken down along with the grammar school” and replaced with properties “in a uniform style…. resulting in a neat and pleasing appearance.”*

Just 24 years later the Ingleby family erected “A handsome Town Hall of stone called the ‘Hotel de Ville’ [which] is used both for public meetings and for literary purposes”.**

A boar and a glass, by any other name .... 2023

For some the demolition of the old cottages and the substitution of new ones in a “uniform style” will look to be a vanity project, made possible because the Ingilby’s owned the village and so could do as they pleased

Ripley in 1847

But then I don’t know the state of the old properties which may well have been past their “sell by date” or if the rents went up in recognition that these were new.

As ever there is more research to do, and that I will do, if only to get to the bottom of the mystery of Boar’s Head which I am told was once a coaching stop, on the way to Rippon, York, Newcastle, and Leeds.

And so with that in mind I went digging only to find that the Boars’ Head in 1847 was a little further south along the road out of Ripley and that on the site or very close to it was the Star Inn which is also described as the Excise Office.

Now I know the names of the landlords of both places, and both are listed as farmers, with a Parliamentary vote.  In the case of one I have tracked him back into the 18^th century running another drinking establishment in a nearby village.

Looking out from the Boar's Head, 2023

To add to the confusion the Boar’s Head vanishes from the listings by 1881, begging lots of questions about what happened to it and when it transferred to its present site.

All of which will be for tomorrow.

Location; Ripley

Pictures; the picture of the painting of Sir William Amcotts Ingilby, the Boar's Head Hotel, along with the Boar’s Head and the window, from the collection of Andrew Simpson, 2023, and Ripley in 1854,  Yorkshire OS Six Inch to the Mile, 1847-1854 Old Maps on line https://maps.nls.uk/view-full/102344737#zoom=7&lat=9822&lon=2682&layers=BT

 *Piggott’s And Co’s Royal  National Commercial Directory, 1841

**Kelly’s Directory of Yorkshire, 1881