Pontefract - History

History

"Pontefract" originates from the Latin for "broken bridge", formed of the elements pons ('bridge') and fractus ('broken'). Pontefract was not recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book, but was noted as Pontefracto in 1090, four years after the Domesday survey. There is a theory that the bridge alluded to was one which crossed Wash Dike, a small stream on the north-eastern edge of Pontefract, running alongside what is now Bondgate (the modern-day A645). It would have been important in the town's early days, providing access between Pontefract and other settlements to the north and east, such as York.

The town is situated on an old Roman road (now the A639), described as the "Roman Ridge", which passes south towards Doncaster. The Roman Ridge is believed to form part of an alternative route from Doncaster to York via Castleford and Tadcaster, as a diversion of the major Roman road Ermine Street, which may have been used to avoid having to cross the river Humber near North Ferriby during rough weather conditions over the Humber. The area which is now the town market place was the original meeting place of the Osgoldcross wapentake. There are the remains of an Anglo-Saxon church and cemetery at The Booths, off North Baileygate, below the castle. The oldest grave dates from around 690. The church is likely to be at Tanshelf, recorded as Tateshale/Tateshalla/Tateshalle/Tatessella in the 1086 Domesday Book, but Pontefract is not mentioned.

Pontefract Castle began as a wooden motte and bailey castle, built before 1086 by Ilbert de Lacy, later rebuilt in stone. In Elizabethan times the castle, and Pontefract itself, was referred to as "Pomfret". King Richard II was murdered at the castle in 1400. William Shakespeare's play Richard III mentions the castle:

Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison,

Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

Within the guilty closure of thy walls

Richard the second here was hack'd to death;

And, for more slander to thy dismal seat,

We give thee up our guiltless blood to drink.

Pontefract suffered throughout the English Civil War. In 1648-49 the castle was laid under siege by Oliver Cromwell, who said it was " one of the strongest inland garrisons in the kingdom." Three sieges by the Parliamentarians left the town impoverished and depopulated. In March 1649, after the third siege, Pontefract inhabitants, fearing a fourth, petitioned Parliament for the castle to be demolished. In their view, the castle was a magnet for trouble, and in April 1649 demolition began. The ruins of the castle remain today and are publicly accessible.

Pontefract was the site of Pontefract Priory, a Cluniac priory founded in 1090 by Robert de Lacy dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The priory was dissolved by royal authority in 1539. The abbey maintained the Chartularies of St John, a collection of historic documents later discovered by Thomas Levett, High Sheriff of Rutland and a native of Yorkshire, among family papers. Levett gave the chartulary to Roger Dodsworth and it was later published by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society.

In 2007 a suspected extension of Ferrybridge Henge — a Neolithic henge — was discovered near Pontefract during a survey in preparation for the construction of a row of houses. Once the survey was complete, the construction continued.