Pontefract, W Yorkshire - Market Street St Giles Church -Photo Precision c.1970s

• Postcard

   

• Picture / Image:  Market Street, St. Giles Church and the Buttercross, Pontefract, West Yorkshire
• Publisher: Photo Precision, St. Ives, Cambs.
• Postally used: no
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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Pontefract is a historic market town in West Yorkshire, England, near the A1 (or Great North Road) and the M62 motorway. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250,^[1] increasing to 30,881 at the 2011 Census.^[2][3] Pontefract's motto is Post mortem patris pro filio, Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the English Civil WarRoyalist sympathies.^[4]

At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted of two distinct and separate localities known as Tanshelf and Kirkby.^[5] 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.^[6] Such a crossing point 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.^[7] Historians believe that, in all probability, it is this historical event which gives the township of Pontefract its modern name. The name "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 it was noted as Pontefracto in 1090, four years after the Domesday survey.^[8]

Pontefract has been a market town since the Middle Ages; market days are Wednesday and Saturday, with a smaller market on Fridays. The covered market is open all week, except Thursday afternoons and Sundays. Thursday afternoon is half-day closing in the town. The town is called 'Ponte'/'Ponty' by its citizens and sometimes jokingly referred to as Ponte Carlo, in reference to Monte Carlo. This theme is continued in the name of bars in the xscape complex, Glasshoughton between Pontefract and Castleford, referred to locally as 'Cas Vegas'. It is reported that Pontefract once held the British record for the town with the most pubs per square mile:^{[by whom?]} indeed, numerous pubs still survive in the town centre in particular, for example Beastfair Vaults, the Liquorice Bush, the Red Lion, the Malt Shovel and the Blackmoor Head. A Wetherspoon public house opened on Horsefair in 2010.

Pontefract's deep, sandy soil makes it one of the few British places in which liquorice can successfully be grown.^{[citation needed]}The town has a liquorice-sweet industry; and the famous Pontefract cakes are produced, though the liquorice plant itself is no longer grown there. The town's two liquorice factories are owned by Haribo (formerly known as Dunhills) and Tangerine Confectionery (formerly part of the Cadbury's Group as Monkhill Confectionery, and before that Wilkinson's), respectively. A Liquorice Festival is held annually. Poet laureate Sir John Betjeman wrote a poem entitled "The Licorice Fields at Pontefract". In 2012 local farmer Robert Copley announced that he would be re-introducing a liquorice crop to Pontefract.^[28][29]

Close by is the coal-fired power station at Ferrybridge, although the local coal mines largely closed in the 1990s, contributing to high unemployment in the local area. The final colliery, Prince of Wales Colliery, closed in 2002.^[30]

There are a number of supermarkets in Pontefract which include a Tesco and Morrisons which are located opposite each other, and an Asda, which was originally a Kwik Save store, a short distance outside the town centre. The secondary schools in the town are Carleton Community High School in Carleton, and the King's School on Mill Hill Lane, both for pupils aged 11–16. A sixth-form college, NEW College, Pontefract, is located on Park Lane.

The old Pontefract General Infirmary on Southgate (pictured) was a general hospital; it is the place at which serial killer Harold Shipman began to murder his elderly patients. Beneath this building is an old hermitage, open to the public on certain days. Pontefract Museum, from which the hermitage schedule can be obtained, is in the town centre, housed in the former Carnegie library. (A new hospital was built on Friarwood and opened in 2010 with the new name of Pontefract Hospital and there is now a modern library building.)

Pontefract has three railway stations: Pontefract Baghill, on the Dearne Valley Line, which connects York and Sheffield; and Pontefract Monkhill and Pontefract Tanshelf, which connects with Leeds and Wakefield. There are also rail services from Bradford to London that stop at Pontefract Monkhill.

The local police force is West Yorkshire Police, with the town's neighbourhood policing team being situated at the new fire station on Stumpcross Lane. The original police station situated in Sessions House yard is due for closure since the new divisional headquarters for the Wakefield District opened in Normanton and the neighbouring magistrates' court has moved over to Wakefield.

Fire cover is provided by West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue with one pump (sometimes two) based at Pontefract Fire Station. Formerly located on Stuart Road in the town centre, the station has now moved to a new site at Stumpcross Lane, by the A645 road at the town's eastern edge. The new fire station also provides cover for Knottingley, that town's fire station having been closed as part of the merging of fire cover for Pontefract and Knottingley.

The Territorial Army, Army Cadets and Air Training Corps all have a presence within the town and are based at the historic Pontefract Barracks building on Wakefield Road. It now houses a Rifles Regiment Recruitment team.