Ripon in the context of "Spur"

Foix (/fwɑː/ fwah, French pronunciation: [fwa] ; Occitan: Fois [ˈfujs, ˈfujʃ]; Catalan: Foix [ˈfoʃ, ˈfojʃ]) is a commune, the former capital of the County of Foix. It is the capital of the department of Ariège as it is the seat of the prefecture of that department. Foix is located in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the second least populous French departmental capital, the least populous being Privas. Foix lies south of Toulouse, close to the borders with Spain and Andorra.

It is only the second biggest town in Ariège, the biggest being Pamiers, which is one of the two sub-prefectures, the other being St Girons. Foix is twinned with the English cathedral city of Ripon, with the Spanish towns of Sarroca de Lleida, Lleida and the Andorran capital Andorra la Vella.

The A1, also known as the Great North Road, is the longest numbered road in the United Kingdom, at 410 miles (660 km). It connects London, the capital of England, with Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. The numbering system for A-roads, devised in the early 1920s, was based around patterns of roads radiating from two hubs at London and Edinburgh. The first number in the system, A1, was given to the most important part of that system: the road from London to Edinburgh, joining the two central points of the system and linking two of the UK's mainland capital cities. It passes through or near north London, Hatfield, Stevenage, Baldock, Biggleswade, Peterborough, Stamford, Grantham, Newark-on-Trent, Retford, Doncaster, Pontefract, York, Wetherby, Ripon, Darlington, Durham, Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne, Morpeth, Alnwick, Berwick-upon-Tweed, Dunbar, Haddington, Musselburgh, and east Edinburgh.

It was designated by the Ministry of Transport in 1921, and for much of its route it followed various branches of the historic Great North Road, the main deviation being between Boroughbridge and Darlington. The course of the A1 has changed where towns or villages have been bypassed, and where new alignments have taken a slightly different route. Between the North Circular Road in London and Morpeth in Northumberland, the road is a dual carriageway, several sections of which have been upgraded to motorway standard and designated A1(M). Between the M25 (near London) and the A720 (near Edinburgh) the road is part of the unsigned Euroroute E15 from Inverness to Algeciras.

North Yorkshire is a ceremonial county in Northern England. It is bordered by County Durham to the north, the North Sea to the east, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the south-east, South Yorkshire to the south, West Yorkshire to the south-west, and Cumbria and Lancashire to the west.

The county is the largest in England by land area, at 8,654 km (3,341 sq mi), and had a population of 1,201,415 in 2024. Middlesbrough and Redcar are located in the north-east of the county and form part of the Teesside conurbation, which extends into County Durham. The city of York is located in the south. The remainder of the county is rural, and its settlements include Harrogate in the south-west, the city of Ripon near the centre, and Scarborough on the coast in the east. For local government purposes the county comprises the unitary authority areas of North Yorkshire, Middlesbrough, Redcar and Cleveland, York, and part of Stockton-on-Tees. The local authorities of York and North Yorkshire form a combined authority of the same name, and the local authorities of the other three areas are part of the Tees Valley Combined Authority. The county was historically part of Yorkshire.

Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (/ˈkʌθ.bɜːrt/) (c. 634 – 20 March 687) was a saint of the early Northumbrian church in the Celtic tradition. He was a monk, bishop and hermit, associated with the monasteries of Melrose and Lindisfarne in the Kingdom of Northumbria, today in north-eastern England and south-eastern Scotland. Both during his life and after his death, he became a popular medieval saint of Northern England, with a cult centred on his tomb at Durham Cathedral. Cuthbert is regarded as the patron saint of Northumbria. His feast days are 20 March (Catholic Church, Church of England, Eastern Orthodox Church, Episcopal Church) and 4 September (Church in Wales, Catholic Church).

Cuthbert grew up in or around Lauderdale, near Old Melrose Abbey, a daughter-house of Lindisfarne, today in Scotland. He decided to become a monk after seeing a vision on the night in 651 that Aidan, the founder of Lindisfarne, died, but he seems to have experienced some period of military service beforehand. He was made guest-master at the new monastery at Ripon, soon after 655, but had to return with Eata of Hexham to Melrose when Wilfrid was given the monastery instead. About 662 he was made prior at Melrose, and around 665 went as prior to Lindisfarne. In 684 he was made bishop of Lindisfarne, but by late 686 he resigned and returned to his hermitage as he felt he was about to die. He was probably in his early 50s.

The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The lieutenancy at that time included the city of York and as such was named "West Riding of the County of York and the County of the City of York". The riding ceased to be used for administrative purposes in 1974, when England's local government was reformed.

Contemporary local government boundaries in Yorkshire largely do not follow those of the riding. All of South Yorkshire (except Finningley) and West Yorkshire were historically within its boundaries, as were the south-western areas of North Yorkshire (including Ripon), the Sedbergh area of Cumbria, the Barnoldswick and Slaidburn areas of Lancashire, the Saddleworth area of Greater Manchester and the part of the East Riding of Yorkshire around Goole and southwest of the River Ouse.

The Sigurd stones form a group of eight or nine Swedish runic inscriptions (five or six runestones, two natural rocks, and a baptismal font) and one picture stone that depict imagery from the Germanic heroic legend of Sigurd the dragon slayer. They were made during the Viking Age and constitute the earliest Norse representations of the matter of the Völsung cycle that is the basis of the Middle High German Nibelungenlied and the Sigurd legends in the Poetic Edda, the Prose Edda, and the Völsunga saga.

In addition, the figure of Sigurd sucking the dragon's blood from his thumb appears on several carved stones in parts of Great Britain with strong Scandinavian cultural influence: at Ripon and Kirby Hill, North Yorkshire, at York and at Halton, Lancashire, and carved slates from the Isle of Man, broadly dated c. 950–1000, include several pieces interpreted as showing episodes from the Sigurd story.

The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, commonly known as Ripon Cathedral, and until 1836 known as Ripon Minster, is a cathedral in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England. Founded as a monastery by monks of the Irish tradition in the 660s, it was refounded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672. The church became collegiate in the tenth century, and acted as a mother church within the large Diocese of York for the remainder of the Middle Ages. The present church is the fourth, and was built between the 13th and 16th centuries. In 1836 the church became the cathedral for the Diocese of Ripon. In 2014 the Diocese was incorporated into the new Diocese of Leeds, and the church became one of three co-equal cathedrals of the Bishop of Leeds.

The cathedral is notable architecturally for its gothic west front in the Early English style, considered one of the best of its type, as well as the Geometric east window. The seventh-century crypt of Wilfrid's church is a significant example of early Christian architecture in England. The cathedral has Grade I listed building status.

Ripon Racecourse is a thoroughbred horse racing venue located in Ripon, North Yorkshire, England and is nicknamed the Garden Racecourse.