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Wakefield is a city in Yorkshire, south of Leeds, and by the River Calder. Its population was 79,885 in 2001. Today it forms part of a metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Yorkshire named the City of Wakefield. The boundaries of the actual city are subject to a wide range of definitions*.

The town was a centre for cloth dealing and had its own Piece Hall. The area was once dominated by coal-mining - a key driver for the industrial revolution. By the time of the 1984 Miners' Strike, all the pits in the city had already been closed, but there were 18 pits in the rest of the district and demonstrations in support of the strike frequently took place in the city. The city suffered a double blow through the closure of local pits and the abolition of West Yorkshire County Council, which had been based in Wakefield. It long remained a depressed area, but fortunes have risen recently and unemployment is now around the national average.

Wakefield Cathedral is a 14th century parish church, which was restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 19th century. There is also a 14th century Chantry Chapel, one of only four remaining in England. The chapel tops a buttress on a bridge over the River Calder.

Wakefield has a very large range of cultural attractions: one of Europe's foremost sculpture parks, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, what was to have been the Duke of York's stronghold in the North, Sandal Castle, the nearby National Coal Mining Museum for England, a town-centre art gallery and a museum.

Wakefield is distinctive in having had an unusually high amount of council housing, and in 2004 when tenants voted overwhelmingly to transfer the entire housing stock to a new registered social landlord (called Wakefield District Housing) it became the second largest stock transfer in British history. The city of Wakefield itself contains seven council estates and was almost 50% council-rented, whilst the wider Wakefield district also includes nearby towns such as Pontefract, Castleford, Hemsworth, Horbury and Ossett. The city's largest estate is Lupset, in the west; the others are called Flanshaw, Plumpton, Peacock, Eastmoor, Portobello affectionately as "bella" and Kettlethorpe.

Cheapside is the longest continuous street of woolstaplers' warehouses in England.

The area of Westgate was historically held to have the largest number of adjacent pubs in England. The famous Westgate Run or 'Pub Crawl' even has its own website, The Westgate Run.

The Wakefield Labour Club is housed in a distinctive wooden building on Vicarage Street South. The building is basically a shed, painted red, and so has become better known as "The Red Shed".

Wakefield is also known for its mystery plays, a cycle of 32 scriptural plays dating from the early 15th century, which were performed as part of the summertime religious festival of Corpus Christi and revived in recent times. The film, "This Sporting Life (1963)" is about Wakefield and the hard realities of the mines and Rugby League, directed by Lindsay Anderson, written by David Storey and starring Richard Harris.

Wakefield is also occasionally known as the capital of the Rhubarb Triangle, an area famous for its early forced Rhubarb. Wakefield is one of the points of the triangular area with the neighbouring towns of Morley and Rothwell at the other two, and is also home to the annual 8 day "Rhubarb Festival" which consists of various themed tours, talks, exhibitions and markets. In July 2005 a statue was erected to celebrate this facet of Wakefield

In June 2005 Wakefield was the scene of the television programme Most Haunted, who hosted a summer solstice special in various locations around the city, including Wakefield Opera House.

Wakefield has its own newspaper, the Wakefield Express, and radio station Ridings FM.

History

Its name is often said to derive from "Wacca's field" -- the field belonging to Wacca. However, it is more likely to have evolved from Old English wacu, meaning "a watch or wake", and feld, an open field in which a wake was held (Reaney, 1964, p.161). In the Domesday Book in 1086, it was listed as Wachefeld (Mills, 1998, p. 361). It was dubbed the Merrie City in the Middle Ages.

In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was defeated near this city (then a town) in the Battle of Wakefield. The ruins of Sandal Castle can still be visited. They are set in pleasant parkland near Pugneys Country Park, a popular walking spot for locals.

Wakefield was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1848 under the Municipal Corporations Act 1835.

Visit Wakefield Tourist Information Centre, located on The Bull Ring near Queen Victoria statue, for more infomation about the Wakefield District. Information is kept on all major events, festivals and attractions which go on in the area.

Music

Indie groups The Cribs (official site) and The Research are from Wakefield.

70's rock band Be Bop deluxe's founder, Bill Nelson was born in Wakefield.

Famous people born in or near Wakefield

Famous songs regarding Wakefield

  • "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush" - about Wakefield Gaol
  • "The Grand Old Duke of York" - commonly attributed to be written about the battle of Wakefield, referring to Richard, the grand old duke.
  • "Wrong Way To Be" - by The Cribs. Features the lyrics "Like all these clued-up arseholes trying to set us and Wakefield at war."

Sport

Wakefield is known for its rugby league club, the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. Formed in 1873, the club has had a chequered history, with their glory period in the 1960s with Neil Fox, Derek 'Rocky' Turner, Keith Holliday and Harold Poynton under coach Ken Traill.

They now play in the elite Super League division on the sport.

Wakefield RFC were the city's rugby union club from 1901 to 2004 when the club ceased playing after relegation and lack of funding.

Wakefield-Emley FC play their football in the Unibond League First Division after their move from the village of Emley in 2001. They played at Belle Vue as tenants of the Wildcats until the end of the 2005/6 season following their relegation. They are expected to move to College Grove for the start of the 2006/7 season.

Cricket and amateur rugby league is played in many of the villages around the city.

One other notable team was skater hockey's Wakefield Warriors, which during their short life, were crowned British and European Champions.

Prisons

Wakefield is less celebrated but nevertheless well known for its prisons.
  • Wakefield Prison is the most high-security in the whole of Britain, and has included many notorious inmates including Ian Huntley, Harold Shipman (Harold Shipman is the third serial killer to have been found hanging in his cell in the last decade) and Charles Bronson. Wakefield was originally built as a house of correction in 1594. The current prison was designated a dispersal prison in 1966 (longest of remaining original group). It is now a lifer main centre with the focus on serious sex offenders.

External links

References

  • Mills, A.D. (1998). A dictionary of English place-names (2nd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280074-4.
  • Reaney, P.H. (1964). The origin of English place-names (corrected 3rd pr.). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ISBN 0-7100-2010-4.

Cities in West Yorkshire | English county towns

Wakefield (England) | Wakefield | Wakefield | Wakefield | Wakefield (Engeland) | Wakefield | Wakefield | Wakefield

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Wakefield".

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