Today, Pontefract is a lively historic market town with a great deal of local heritage that alone makes the town well worth a visit. Although if history doesn’t tickle your fancy, fear not – Pontefract still has plenty to offer.

As you may well have heard, sweets (or, as some locals call them, “spice”) play a big part in Pontefract life. There’s an annual Liquorice festival every summer to celebrate the town’s liquorice growing heritage and is an event not be missed! Pontefract is perhaps most well-known for making Pontefract cakes, otherwise known as Pomfret cakes or Pomfrey cakes. The cakes are small liquorice discs stamped with an image of Pontefract castle and are thought to be one of the world’s oldest confectionaries, the trademark for the sweet being established as early as 1612. Given this deep-rooted history of confectionary production, it is perhaps no surprise that there are still two sweet factories operating in the town today, Dunhills Haribo and Tangerine.

Dunhills Haribo, of course, makes Haribo sweets, including such classics as Starmix, Tangfastics, and Jelly Babies. Prior to the German-owned company takeover in the early 1980’s, Dunhills had long been part of Pontefract’s history and culture, George Dunhill having founded his company in the 1700’s. Importantly too, George Dunhill was himself a grower of liquorice and a merchant of Pontefract cakes. It was he, in fact,  who first added sugar to the original Pontefract cake recipe to produce the treat we still eat today. Thankfully, Haribo continues to make Pontefract’s trademark sweet (or spice!), a Yorkshire treat which can be found in newsagents and corner shops throughout the UK!

Pontefract’s second sweet factory, Tangerine, was founded in 1884 and is responsible for giving us such definitive British sweets as Dib Dab, Black Jack, Refreshers, Sherbert Fountain and many, many more. Tangerine also produces its own traditional liquorice sweets, and, amazingly, still has a handful of liquorice bushes growing around its flagpole at the factory’s site entrance!

The wonderful thing about having two sweet factories in town is that very often the smell of all the Haribo and Tangerine products descends upon the town like a sugary perfume, which really lifts your spirits, especially when the weather’s bleak!

As well as its production of sweet things, Pontefract also has a bustling local market. You can find the lively market sellers hawking their wares in their strong local dialect on Wednesdays and Saturdays (there is also a smaller market on Fridays). At the market, you can be sure to find a great selection of fruit and veg, flowers, and clothing, as well as much more. Along with the outdoor market, there is also a brilliant indoor market that is open throughout the week and is chock full of local butchers’ shops, bakeries, cobblers, and tailors.

Whilst you’re in town it is worth just taking a minute to admire the staggering amount of historic buildings that can be seen there. For example, Pontefract Town Hall on Market Place, built in 1785, was the first place in the UK the conduct secret ballots after the Ballot Act of 1872.

Not far from the Town Hall you will find the Buttercross, where, bizarrely enough, local men reportedly used to auction their wives. The Buttercross was built in 1734 on the site of Saint Oswald’s Cross, a cross erected in honour of the Medieval Christian King, Oswald of Northumbria (633 AD).

Adjacent to the Buttercross is St Giles Church, which has been Pontefract’s parish church since 1789. On the other side of town is the historic All Saints Church, built around the early 1300’s; it is thought that a place of worship has occupied the site since Anglo Saxon times and there is even one documented in the Domesday book of 1086. During the English Civil War (1642-1651) the nearby Castle was besieged three times by Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads; consequently, All Saints Church was hit by cannonballs over 60 times, which left the church in ruins, much of the damage is still visible to this day. Surprisingly, during renovations to the church’s north wall in 1999, a civil war era cannonball was released from the dislodged masonry and fell to the ground – around 350 years after it was first fired by Cromwell’s Parliamentarians!

To appreciate the history of many of Pontefract’s old buildings, all you need do is simply look up above many of the town’s shop fronts, lots of which have beautiful architectural features from centuries’ past. (For more information on Pontefract’s rich history, please see our ‘History’ page).

Some of the more modern additions to the town are Pontefract Library, erected in 1975 in the brutalist style. The original library building is now home to Pontefract Museum and was built in Art-Deco style in 1905.

Another grand feature of Pontefract, and something that the town is well known for locally, is its pubs and nightlife. It has been said that Pontefract once held a world record for having the highest number of pubs per square mile. Now, if that’s not something to be proud of, I don’t know what is. Sadly, however, many of the town’s pubs have been forced to shut their doors over the past decade, in large part due to the economic crisis of 2008. All the same, a good few still remain and all are worth a visit for a drink or two (or three!)

Pontefract also has some lovely green spaces, notably Pontefract Park and the Valley Gardens, both of which are particularly pleasant in the springtime and early autumn. Pontefract Park is home to Pontefract Racecourse, purported to be the longest flat racecourse in Europe at around 2 miles long. Interestingly, Pontefract Racecourse was first in the country to have a dope testing facility. There are roughly 16 race days per year, with thousands of spectators attending from all over the country. Typically, after the race day events are over, many of the fans migrate to the pubs in town, resulting in a very lively (and busy!) evening.

Geographically, Pontefract occupies an ideal location for a market town, right next Junction 32 of the M62 motorway; its nearest cities are Wakefield, Leeds, Doncaster, and York – all are within a half an hour drive. There are also 3 train stations in Pontefract: Monkhill, Baghill, and Tanshelf. There is even a daily express train to London Kings Cross.

Politically, Pontefract has long been a Labour safe seat. Our current sitting MP is Yvette Cooper, who represents the constituency of Pontefract, Normanton, and Castleford, and has done since 1997. Prior to 1997 Geoffrey Lofthouse, a former miner, was Pontefract’s MP, having retained his seat since 1978. Pontefract’s Labour roots can be partly traced back to the industrial heritage of the area, particularly that of coal mining. Pontefract’s Prince of Wales Colliery closed down in 2002, having been mining coal from 1862. In December 2015, in the neighbouring town of Knottingley, Britain witnessed the closure of its very last deep coal mine, Kellingley Colliery, also known as Big K.

As you can well see, there is certainly plenty going off in Pontefract! We welcome around 50,000 tourists each year to our town and as the Pontefract Heritage Group, it is our duty to make the town’s culture and heritage as widely available to the public as possible!

 

For further information about Pontefract and the surrounding area, click on the following links:

Welcome to Yorkshire:                  www.yorkshire.com

Pontefract Castle:                            www.pontefractcastle.co.uk

Pontefract Civic Society:               www.pontefractcivicsociety.org.uk

Experience Wakefield:                  www.experiencewakefield.co.uk