18 Facts About Pontefract

Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford.

Pontefract's motto is, Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the town's Royalist sympathies in the English Civil War.

The 11th-century historian, Orderic Vitalis, recorded that, in 1069, William the Conqueror travelled across Yorkshire to put down an uprising which had sacked York, but that, upon his journey to the city, he discovered that the crossing of the River Aire at what is modern-day Pontefract had been blockaded by a group of local Anglo-Scandinavian insurgents, who had broken the bridge and held the opposite bank in force.

Pontefract'storians believe that it is this historical event which gives the township of Pontefract its modern name.

The modern township of Pontefract consisted of two Anglo-Scandinavian settlements, known as Tanshelf and Kirkby.

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Pontefract Castle began as a wooden motte and bailey castle, built before 1086 and later rebuilt in stone.

The late, great historians Richard Barrie Dobson and John Taylor indicated that this location provides a very specific clue to Robin Hood's Pontefract heritage, noting that such evidence of continuity makes it virtually certain that the Saylis or Sayles, which was so well known to the Robin Hood of the "Gest" survived into modern times as the 'Sayles Plantation' near Wentbridge.

In 2014, the historian Dr S A La' Chance published a thesis that detailed how a notorious medieval outlaw named Swein-Son-Of-Sicga, and styled by contemporaries as 'The Prince of Thieves' inhabited the forested areas of Barnsdale, on the outskirts of Pontefract, and made a living by robbing, amongst others Abbot Benedict of Selby.

Pontefract was the site of Pontefract Priory, a Cluniac priory founded in 1090 by Robert de Lacy dedicated to St John the Evangelist.

Pontefract has been a market town since the Middle Ages; market days are Wednesday and Saturday, with a small market on Fridays.

Town has a liquorice-sweet industry; and the famous Pontefract cakes are produced, though the liquorice plant itself is no longer grown there.

Old Pontefract General Infirmary on Southgate was a general hospital; it is the place at which serial killer Harold Shipman began to murder his elderly patients.

New hospital was built on Friarwood Lane and opened in July 2010, with the new name of Pontefract Hospital; there is a modern hospital building.

Pontefract made local and national newspapers in April 2020, with a range of art which lay tribute to the key workers and NHS during the coronavirus outbreak.

Pontefract South is currently represented by two Labour councillors and one Conservative councillor with North ward represented by three Labour councillors [as of August 2022].

Pontefract has its own non-league football club, Pontefract Collieries F C, which was founded in 1958 and plays adjacent to the former Prince of Wales Colliery off Beechnut Lane.

Pontefract is home to the Pontefract Knights rugby league football club.

Pontefract Baghill is on the Dearne Valley Line, which connects York and Sheffield.