Pontefract is a historic market town in the City of Wakefield, a metropolitan district in West Yorkshire, England.

Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wakefield district and had a population of 30,881 at the 2011 Census.

[1][2] Pontefract's motto is Post mortem patris pro filio, Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the town's Royalist sympathies in the English Civil War.

At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted of two distinct localities, Tanshelf and Kirkby.

[4] 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.

Upon his journey to the city, he discovered that a crossing of the River Aire near what is modern-day Pontefract had been blockaded by local Anglo-Scandinavian insurgents, who had broken the bridge and held the opposite bank in force.

[5] Such a crossing point would have been important to the town, providing access between Pontefract and other settlements to the north and east, such as York.

This 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 period of Yorkshire's history between the demise of the Viking king, Eric Bloodaxe, in 954 and the arrival of the Normans in 1068 is known as the Anglo-Scandinavian age.

The Anglo-Scandinavian township, Tanshelf, recorded as Tateshale, Tateshalla, Tateshalle or Tatessella in the 'Domesday Book' is today occupied by the town of Pontefract.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle made a reference to Tanshelf in 947 when King Eadred of England met with the ruling council of Northumbria to accept its submission.

After the Norman conquest in 1066 almost all of Yorkshire came under the ownership of followers of William the Conqueror,[11] one of whom was Ilbert de Lacy who became the owner of Tateshale (Tanshelf) where he built a castle.

[21] The priory maintained the Chartularies of St John, a collection of historic documents later discovered among family papers by Thomas Levett, the High Sheriff of Rutland, a native of Yorkshire, who gave them to Roger Dodsworth, an antiquary.

[24] From 1978 to 1997, ex-miner and former NUM branch leader Geoff Lofthouse (18 December 1925 – 1 November 2012) was Member of Parliament (MP) for the Pontefract and Castleford constituency.

In her maiden speech to the House of Commons, Cooper said:"It is true that my constituency is plagued by unemployment, but I represent hard-working people who are proud of their strong communities and who have fought hard across generations to defend them.

In the Middle Ages, that early egalitarian, the real Robin Hood, lived, so we maintain, in the Vale of Wentbridge to the south of Pontefract.

[27] The town has a liquorice-sweet industry; further, the famous Pontefract cakes are produced, though the liquorice plant is no longer grown there.

Poet laureate Sir John Betjeman wrote a poem entitled "The Licorice Fields at Pontefract".

Pontefract Museum, from which the hermitage schedule can be obtained, is in the town centre, housed in the former Carnegie library.

Novelist Jack Vance, in the "Demon Princes" cycle has named the capital of Aloysius, the main planet in the Vega system, after Pontefract.

Pontefract made local and national newspapers in April 2020, with a range of art which lay tribute to the key workers and NHS during the coronavirus outbreak.

Notable institutions are horse racing at Pontefract Racecourse and Featherstone Rovers, the area's professional rugby league club.

Pontefract Racecourse is the longest continuous horse racing circuit in Europe at 2 miles 125 yards (3,333 m; 16.57 furlongs).

The team, known locally as "Ponte Colls" play in the Northern Premier League Division One North West (correct as of the 2021–22 season).