Hornblower required for city's ancient tradition

A cathedral city is seeking a new recruit for a role which dates back more than 1,000 years.

A horn has been sounded four times in Ripon's Market Place every night at 21:00 since AD886 to "set the watch".

Ripon City Council is advertising for a hornblower to work up to three nights a week, to bring the four-person team up to full strength.

The council said it was "fiercely proud" of its team, and the hornblower was a "symbol and talisman for the city".

According to the job description, the main responsibilities are to "sound the horn at 9pm on an agreed number of evenings... provide a brief history of the horn-blowing ceremony for the public in attendance... and sound the horn three times outside the mayor's house".

The hornblower would also need to attend civic events, ceremonies and processions as required.

They would be paid £13.05 an hour, the council said.

The "setting the watch" tradition is said to date back to when Saxon king Alfred the Great presented Ripon with a horn after granting the city a Royal Charter.

The horn is blown nightly at each of the four corners of the obelisk in the Market Square and then three times outside the mayor's house.

The tradition commemorates the time in the Middle Ages when Ripon's first citizen, the Wakeman, was responsible for crime prevention in the city from 21:00 until dawn and had to compensate victims of burglary.

The event regularly attracts a large crowd of spectators and is popular with tourists.

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