Sir Thomas Markenfield: The Effigy They Tried to Rewrite

Ripon Cathedral, 14th Century

In the quiet, vaulted stillness of Ripon Cathedral, tucked along the north aisle, rests the battered but still commanding effigy of Sir Thomas Markenfield, a 14th-century knight of one of Yorkshire’s most powerful and long-rooted noble families. Though time has softened the lines of the cathedral around him, it was not time—but human hands—that attempted to soften him.

Sir Thomas belonged to the family of Markenfield Hall, the fortified moated manor just outside Ripon that still stands today, a testament to centuries of wealth, land, and political authority. The Markenfields were not minor gentry. They were sheriffs, knights, justices of the peace, landowners of vast acreage, and regional power brokers whose influence shaped northern England before and after the Black Death. Sir Thomas himself lived during a period of national upheaval and local authority—his lineage tied him to royal service, military obligations, and the governance of the North Riding.

But his effigy reveals something even more powerful than his titles.
It reveals the truth someone later tried very hard to bury.

The alabaster monument that once bore his painted likeness has been stripped, sanded, and re-carved. The original pigments—browns, reds, and warm earth tones—have been removed entirely. The nose has been sanded down to a narrow ridge, and the mouth subtly re-shaped, just enough to force a more European profile onto a face that was never meant to be pale or narrow.

These alterations were not the work of age. They were intentional.
And they were ideological.

The effigy of Sir Thomas Markenfield’s wife has been savagely destroyed, with her upper body completely smashed and obliterated. Every trace of her face, her features, and her identity has been deliberately erased. As the saying goes, “you do not destroy what looks like you,” making the intent painfully clear: her true identity and heritage were intentionally hidden. Witnessing such deliberate damage to the monuments of my ancestors is deeply frustrating and heartbreaking, a stark testament to how history has been manipulated to conceal the truth. Yet even in the absence of her form, her story remains, waiting for those willing to see and honor it.

Because no one destroys what looks like themselves.
No one sands away a face unless the original features contradict the narrative they want the world to believe.

Even after centuries of attempted erasure, the underlying structure remains unmistakable:
the broad nasal base, the fullness around the mouth, the rounded bone structure typical of the swarthy, Afro-Shemitic phenotypes seen again and again in early British nobility before later editors intervened.

What was meant to be hidden still rises through the stone.

Sir Thomas lies there not simply as a knight, but as evidence—evidence of a lineage, a presence, and a complexion that later generations sought to erase from the historical record. His effigy echoes the same pattern seen across Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Lincolnshire, and the Midlands: deliberate iconoclasm used not for religion this time, but for rewriting identity.

Ripon Cathedral may shine with Gothic beauty, but in this quiet corner, truth shines brighter.
Sir Thomas Markenfield remains a silent witness to a history whitened in books but not fully erased in stone.

Despite the sanding, scraping, and re-painting—
his true face still endures.

“Beneath the chisels, the sanding, and the erased paint, the truth still waits for those who dare to see it”

Guinevere Jackson

Image citation Church image Wikipedia – Effigy images Flickr