Pontefract
From Free net encyclopedia
Pontefract (from the Latin for Broken Bridge) is a town in the county of West Yorkshire, England, near the A1 (or Great North Road), the M62 motorway, and Castleford. It is one of the five towns in the borough of Wakefield. It has a population of 28,250.
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History
Pontefract Castle dates from Norman times, when it was known as Pomfret.
Pontefract suffered throughout the English Civil War, the castle had been noted by Cromwell to be "...one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom." However, three sieges by the Parliamentarians had left the town impoverished and depopulated. Following the end of the Third Siege (24th March 1649) and fearing a fourth, Pontefract inhabitants petitioned Parliament for the castle to be demolished. On 5th April, 1649, demolishment began. Its ruins can still be visited today.
Richard II was killed there. Pomfret is mentioned in the Shakespeare play Richard III. The town is on an old roman road (now the A639), referred to as the Roman Ridge, which passes south towards Doncaster.
Although Pontefract itself does not appear in the Domesday Book, an area of the town, known as Tanshelf, does.
Pontefract Today
Pontefract has been a market town since, at least, the Middle Ages; and the main market days are Wednesday and Saturday, with a smaller market on Fridays. There is also a covered market, which is open all week, except Thursday afternoons and Sundays. Thursday afternoon is half-day closing in Pontefract. The town is called Ponte by its citizens. The local MP is Yvette Cooper for Pontefract and Castleford.
Pontefract's sandy soil makes it one of the few British places in which liquorice can be grown. The town has a liquorice sweet industry, including the famous Pontefract Cakes (liquorice sweets), but the plant is no longer grown there. There are two liquorice factories in the town: Haribo (formerly known as Dunhills) and Monkhill Confectionery (formerly known as Wilkinson's). A Liquorice Festival is held each year. Close by is the large coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge. There are a Tesco and Morrisons supermarkets. The schools in the town are: the Carleton Community High School in Carleton and The King's School on Mill Hill Lane, both comprehensive schools for ages 11-16.
The town has a public library and a museum. It is locally renowned for its large number of pubs. One of the oldest buildings in the town was turned into a pub in the 1980s, and is called the Counting House. The building itself dates from the 16th century, and previously was used as shop premises.
Pontefract General Infirmary is a large general hospital, beneath which is an old hermitage, open to the public on certain days. It first place the infamous serial killer Harold Shipman began mass-murdering elderly patients. Pontefract Museum (at which can be obtained the hermitage schedule) is in the town centre and is well worth a visit. It is housed in the old building that used to be the library. There is now a modern library building.
The Infirmary had a School of Nursing attached to it in the 1970s and 1980s. People came to train as nurses at this school from all over the world, including Zimbabwe, Mauritius, Malaysia and other places, as well as attracting trainee nurses locally. The student nurses, and other staff, lived in the Tower Block on the hospital site, and there was a very international and cosmopolitan atmosphere, with multicultural social events, yoga classes, and so on. Unusually for a town of its size, Pontefract has three railway stations: Pontefract Baghill, on the Dearne Valley Line, which connects York and Sheffield; and Pontefract Monkhill and Pontefract Tanshelf, which connect with Leeds and Wakefield.
Pontefract has a park with a racecourse on the outskirts of town, whilst nearer to the town centre are the very pretty Valley Gardens, with a love garden, an aviary, and a fine avenue of flowering cherry trees, well worth visiting in the springtime. Although the trees are still beautiful, the gardens have become quite depleted and the aviary has been vandalised. Pontefract swimming pool is on Stuart Road.
Life in Pontefract was satirised by J. S. Fletcher in his book The Town of Crooked Ways, which may have been a reference either to the medieval layout of the town, or to the behaviour of its inhabitants. More recently, Pontefract has seen its share of scandal, in the form of the Poulson affair, in the 1960s.
Pontefract is home to North-East-Wakefield College (more commonly known as NEW College), which has ranked in the top 25 colleges in the UK for the past few years. Pontefract is also home to All Saints Church which today is sited in the ruins of the original church, the latter being destroyed during the three sieges of Pontefract Castle during the civil war. It is also home to the famous 'double helix' staircase leading to the bell tower.
Entertainment
The town has its own newspaper, the Pontefract and Castleford Express, and radio station, Ridings FM.
Pontefract is known for its nightlife, sporting one of the most concentrated numbers of public houses in the UK. Such venues as Kikos (formally known as Liberty Park) on Front Street and Big Fellas (formerly known as Shadows) on Beastfair.