Words such as "worth" and also "tun", meaning an enclosure or farmstead, are found in local names such as Badsworth, Hemsworth and Wentworth, and Fryston and Allerton.

[10] In terms of Christianity, the first church may have appeared in Ackworth between 750 and 800, a well-established tradition being that the monks of Lindisfarne, escaping the Norse invasion, stopped there about 875, bringing with them the body of Saint Cuthbert.

[14] De Lacy was a Norman knight, who received land for services to William the Conqueror and built the first earth and timber motte and bailey castle in nearby Pontefract.

"[19] The area had possibly been used for mass burial after a skirmish earlier in the year between Roundhead and Royalist forces during the English Civil War.

[23] The monk, from the priory at Nostell would preach at the medieval cross in the centre of the village and was described as a "noble soul with a kindly heart", admired by young and old alike.

[23] After succumbing to the plague in Rome, his body was returned and passed through Ackworth, where "nothing could satisfy the ignorant but faithful love of the old hearers" and the coffin was opened.

[23] The book relates how "upon that stone the Ackworth purchaser dropped his money into a vessel of water, for which, a few hours afterwards, he found his return in merchandise."

[19] In 1489, four years after the War of the Roses ended, the new King Henry Tudor levied a tax that sparked an uprising in parts of Yorkshire.

Options include Oswestry in Shropshire, Winwick in Lancashire, Whinmoor, north-east of Leeds, and between Wentbridge and Ackworth, where the A639, once a Roman road, crosses the River Went.

A revolt led by Robert Aske, styled the Pilgrimage of Grace, was thought to have marched through Ackworth on its way to capture Pontefract Castle in 1536.

The rebels were eventually defeated by an army sent by Henry, and its leaders hanged at Tyburn, including Sir Nicholas Tempest of Ackworth.

[19] During the English Civil War, the Ackworth area was strongly Royalist, with four divisions of volunteers raised from Pontefract and surrounding villages to garrison the castle.

[34][35] Bradley sided with the Royalists in the English Civil War and is recorded as part of Sir George Wentworth's division in the garrison of Pontefract Castle.

[38] During the Commonwealth period it was reported that Bradley "suffered intensively"; his house was looted and "himself, his lady, and all his children turned out of doors to seek their bread in desolate places.

"[41] The book underlines its location: "It is so completely removed from any great line of road, either of the old system or the new, that but for the world-wide celebrity it has obtained from the Society of Friends from its association with their school, it is probable that, at least as it regards them, it would have slumbered in undisturbed repose amidst the well cultivated lands by which it is surrounded.

"[41] The school was opened by John Fothergill, described in the book as an "eminent physician of London and a man of much influence in the Society of Friends".

[41] The governors of the "Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children" had already established branches in Shrewsbury, Chester and Westerham.

"[43] The hospital eventually closed in 1773 and remained empty for several years, during which time it seems to have avoided being turned into a "lunatic asylum" or "being sold and taken down for the materials.

[45] Of its time as a foundling hospital, A History of Ackworth School paints an unflattering picture, in which "disease and death carried off great numbers annually," due to "starvation, and even murder, on the part of nurses who had the care of the infants, and of masters to whom the elder children were apprenticed."

This "added to the mortality and, though the evidence is abundant of the untiring efforts of the directors to care for the children whilst in the hospital, and to protect their rights when they were apprenticed, evils and oppressions, unnumbered and insurmountable, paralyzed their exertions and the establishment was given up.

At times the demand for apprentices was so high that the steward of the hospital, John Hargreaves, wrote to the London board asking for more children to be sent.

[48][note 1] After the foundling hospital closed in 1773, John Fothergill, who had arranged the purchase in 1777, turned the building into a school for the Society of Friends.

He had helped establish schools in New York and Philadelphia, and though never visiting the colonies, often saw patients crossing the Atlantic to seek his advice as a physician.

[45] At 53°30′0″N 1°20′0.8″W / 53.50000°N 1.333556°W / 53.50000; -1.333556 Ackworth is bounded by the City of Wakefield to the west, Pontefract to the north, with the villages of Thorpe Audlin and Kirk Smeaton to the east and Hemsworth to the south.

[4] The underlying geology round High Ackworth consists of grey mud and silt stones associated with the Bolsovian series of rocks from the Upper Carboniferous period.

[4] Saywell (1894) describes Brackenhill as "almost entirely inhabited by stoneworkers" and Moor Top consisting of "several good houses, the rest are the cottages of miners and quarryworkers".

[56] The 1848 Topographical History of Great Britain notes "extensive quarries" of stone found in Moor Top, with an abundant supply of "freestone of excellent quality".

[57] The first stone quarry was said to have been opened by John Askew, whose initials supposedly appear on the lintel of the Masons Arms, a pub in Moor Top, one of the parish's oldest buildings.

[67] The route can still be seen in places: the first mile from Brackenhill Junction to Cherry Tree Farm is used by railway maintenance road vehicles and the section from Mill Lane to Kinsley Common as a cycle path.

[74] After being evicted from a house owned in Berkshire, singer Dorothy Squires was asked to stay at the home of a local fan in the village, where she lived from 1988 until the host's death in 1995.