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.

[6] Saint Wilfrid brought stonemasons, plasterers and glaziers from France and Italy to build his great basilica in AD 672.

A contemporary account by Stephen of Ripon tells us: In Ripon, Saint Wilfrid built and completed from the foundations to the roof a church of dressed stone, supported by various columns and side-aisles to a great height and many windows, arched vaults and a winding cloister.

Devastated by the English king Eadred in AD 948 as a warning to the Archbishop of York,[8] only the crypt of Wilfrid's church survived but today this tiny 7th-century chapel rests complete beneath the later grandeur of Archbishop Roger de Pont l’Evêque's 12th century minster.

Thomas of Bayeux, first Norman Archbishop of York, then instigated the construction of a third church, traces of which were incorporated into the later chapter house of Roger's minster.

[10] The Early English west front was added in 1220, its twin towers originally crowned with wooden spires and lead.

[12] Major rebuilding had to be postponed due to the outbreak of the Wars of the Roses but resumed after the accession of Henry VII and the restoration of peace in 1485.

[16][17] The minster finally became a cathedral (the church where the Bishop has his cathedra or throne) in 1836, the focal point of the newly created Anglican Diocese of Ripon – the first to be established since the Reformation.