Anglo-Saxon Crypts

In this post I thought I would cover anglo-saxon crypts as next time we will look at anglo-saxon towers and how they were used. Saxon crypts are very rare and mostly in large or important churches with an ancient provenance.

Repton crypt, we’ll come back to this at the end of this post.

My favourite crypt is in Ripon, North Yorkshire. It was built by St Wilfrid as part of his church there (now replaced), who had visited Rome and based his crypts on the Roman Catacombs. While the church at Ripon has been rebuilt over it, the crypt still exists and has been used continuously since the 7th century.

In this photo you can see the location of the entrance; it’s by the woman on the right, surrounded by grey barriers.

You go down some steep steps, make a hard left at the bottom and emerge into the central chamber.