West Yorkshire History Centre

The Battle of Wakefield took place in Sandal Magna near Wakefield in northern England, on 30 December 1460. It was a major battle of the Wars of the Roses. The opposing forces were an army led by nobles loyal to the captive King Henry VI of the House of Lancaster and his Queen Margaret of Anjou on one side, and the army of Richard, Duke of York, the rival claimant to the throne, on the other. For several years before the battle, the Duke of York had become increasingly opposed to the weak King Henry's court. After open warfare broke out between the factions and Henry became his prisoner, he laid claim to the throne, but lacked sufficient support. Instead, in an agreement known as the Act of Accord, he was made Henry's heir to the throne, displacing from the succession Henry's and Margaret's 7-year-old son Edward, Prince of Wales. Margaret of Anjou and several prominent nobles were irreconcilably opposed to this accord, and massed their armies in the north. Richard of York marched north to deal with them, but found he was outnumbered. Although he occupied Sandal Castle, York sortied from the castle on 30 December. His reasons for doing so have been variously ascribed to deception by the Lancastrian armies, or treachery by some nobles and Lancastrian officers who York thought were his allies, or simple rashness or miscalculation by York. He was killed and his army was destroyed. Many of the prominent Yorkist leaders and their family members died in the battle or were captured and executed.

The ABC Cinema was a cinema in Wakefield, West Yorkshire that fell into derelition after its closure. Located in Kirkgate on the corner of Sun Lane, it was designed and built in the Art Deco style for Associated British Cinemas by in-house architect William R. Glen and opened as the Regal Cinema on 9 December 1935.Smaller than many later ABC houses, the Regal seated 1,594 people and had a full stage 26 feet (7.9 m) deep behind the 43 feet (13 m) wide proscenium. The interior was rather plainer than many of Glen's cinemas with concealed lighting under the balcony and at the rear of the ceiling and pendant fittings casting light upwards towards the front of the cinema. Although provision was made for an organ with chambers to the side and above the proscenium, one was never installed. It was renamed ABC in 1962. In 1976 it was divided into three screens with Screen 1 seating 532 in the balcony using the original screen and projection suite and Screen 2 (236 seats) and Screen 3 (170 seats) in the rear stalls area. In this form it reopened on 11 November 1976. In 1986 ABC's cinemas were sold to The Cannon Group. In December 1996 Cineworld opened a multiplex in Wakefield and in 1997 the ABC closed. In 2007 Blockbuster Entertainment sought planning permission to convert the building into 119 one- and two-bedroom flats, eight shops and a rooftop garden. In 2009 the City of Wakefield granted planning permission, but the project did not go ahead. In December 2013 a property company, PS & S Ltd, applied for planning permission to demolish the building and replace it with a modern apartment block. Plans to demolish the building and replace it with a car park were withdrawn in 2019. In 2020 the site was bought by Wakefield Council which announced plans in June 2021 to demolish the cinema and turn the site into a temporary green space until a new building is designed. Demolition began internally in March 2022, and exterior demolition was completed in May 2023. The Beatles played at the Cinema on Thursday 7 February 1963 as part of the Helen Shapiro Winter Tour, just a few days before they recorded on 11 February, the majority of their first album, Please Please Me. The Beatles had only released one single at this stage – Love Me Do, which had reached number 17 in the charts. The Cinema played host to many such shows in the 1950's and 60's.

Chantry Bridge, sometimes known as Wakefield Bridge, is a mediaeval bridge in the city of Wakefield, in West Yorkshire, in England. In the early 14th century, there was a timber bridge over the River Calder in Wakefield, with Kirkgate connecting the bridge to the town centre. The bridge was damaged by flooding in the 1330s, and a decision was taken to rebuild it in stone.Construction of the new bridge began in 1342, with spans connecting the north bank to a small island. The Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin was built on the island. The bridge was then completed from the island to the south bank, in similar style, but only the arches supporting the northern part of the bridge have ribs. The chapel was consecrated in 1356, and this is sometimes taken to be the completion date of the bridge. The bridge was widened by nine feet in 1758. It was painted by J. M. W. Turner in 1797, in which year it was widened by nine feet for a second time. This work was probably designed by John Carr of York and undertaken by Bernard Hartley. Wakefield New Bridge was constructed immediately upstream of Chantry Bridge in 1933, and now carries the large majority of traffic. Chantry Bridge was Grade I listed in 1953. The bridge has nine arches. The original arches are visible on the downstream side, and are pointed, while the widened section on the upstream side has round arches. Each arch is supported by a platform with a cutwater. There is a plain parapet.

The Hepworth Wakefield is an art museum in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, which opened on 21 May 2011. The gallery is situated on the south side of the River Calder and takes its name from artist and sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born and educated in the city. It is the successor of (and subsumed) the municipal art collection, founded in 1923 as Wakefield Art Gallery, which spans the Old Masters to the twentieth century. The gallery was designed by British architect David Chipperfield, who won an architectural design competition managed by RIBA Competitions and was built by Laing O'Rourke with funding from Wakefield Council, Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund. Yorkshire Forward, the Homes and Communities Agency, and the European Regional Development Fund have also supported the building of the gallery alongside a number of charitable trusts, corporations and private individuals. The Hepworth Wakefield is a registered charity under English law.The gallery cost £35 million to build. Five weeks after opening it had received 100,000 visitors. In May 2012 it celebrated its first birthday, having received over 500,000 visitors in the year. In October 2015, the gallery launched the £30,000 biennial Hepworth Prize for Sculpture as part of the celebrations marking its 5th anniversary.

Wakefield Kirkgate railway station is a railway station in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. Unlike the nearby Wakefield Westgate railway station, Kirkgate is unstaffed. The station is managed by Northern but also served by Grand Central and TransPennine Express. It is on the Hallam, Calder Valley, Pontefract and Huddersfield lines. It has a limited number of services to London King's Cross.

The Chantry Chapel of St Mary the Virgin is a chantry chapel in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, and is designated a Grade I Listed building by English Heritage. It is located south of the city centre on the medieval Chantry Bridge over the River Calder. It is the only survivor of four chantries in Wakefield and the oldest and most ornate of the surviving bridge chapels in England. Others are at St Ives (Cambridgeshire), Rotherham, Derby and Bradford-on-Avon. The chapel has had three west fronts, the original medieval façade having been removed to Kettlethorpe Hall in 1832. The medieval bridge is a scheduled ancient monument.

The Old Vicarage in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England is a building dating from c. 1349. Located on Zetland Street, the building and surrounding car park are linked to a network of tunnels, believed to be used by non-conformists after the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662.The Old Vicarage is owned by the Wakefield County Conservative Association and is currently occupied by independent shops.

The Ridings Shopping Centre is an indoor shopping centre in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. It opened on 17 October 1983. The pioneering centre was a UK first and subsequently served as a template for many shopping centres throughout the UK.

The capture of Wakefield occurred during the First English Civil War when a Parliamentarian force attacked the Royalist garrison of Wakefield, Yorkshire. The Parliamentarians were outnumbered, having around 1,500 men under the command of Sir Thomas Fairfax, compared to the 3,000 led by George Goring in Wakefield. Despite being outnumbered, Parliamentarians successfully stormed the town, taking roughly 1,400 prisoners. Around 800 Parliamentarians had been taken prisoner after being defeated at Seacroft Moor, and Fairfax plotted the capture of Wakefield to take prisoners of his own to exchange for his men. He marched his force from Leeds and split it in two to attack from different directions. After around two hours of fighting early in the morning of 21 May, 1643, Fairfax broke through into Wakefield. Goring, who had been in bed suffering from either illness or a hangover, rose and led a counterattack in his nightshirt, but to no avail and the town was captured. Fairfax gained the prisoners he needed and much ammunition. According to his own account, the Parliamentarians lost no more than seven men.

Wakefield Cathedral, or the Cathedral Church of All Saints in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, is a co-equal Anglican cathedral with Bradford and Ripon Cathedrals, in the Diocese of Leeds and a seat of the Bishop of Leeds. Originally the parish church, it has Anglo Saxon origins and, after enlargement and rebuilding, has the tallest spire in Yorkshire. Its 247-foot (75 m) spire is the tallest structure in the City of Wakefield. The cathedral was designated a Grade I listed building on 14 July 1953.

Trinity Walk is a shopping centre in Wakefield, West Yorkshire. England. Opened on 6 May 2011, Wakefield Council describe it as "the most important City Centre development for more than 20 years." The centre was built to supplement the larger Ridings Centre.

Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 109,766 in the 2021 census, up from 99,251 in the 2011 census. The city is the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield, which had a 2021 population of 353,802, the 25th most populous district in England. It is part of the West Yorkshire Built-up Area and the Yorkshire and The Humber region. In 1888, it gained city status due to its cathedral. The city has a town hall and is home to the county hall, which was the former administrative centre of the city's county borough and metropolitan borough as well as county town for the West Riding of Yorkshire. The Battle of Wakefield took place in the Wars of the Roses, and the city was a Royalist stronghold in the Civil War. Wakefield became an important market town and centre for wool, exploiting its position on the navigable River Calder to become an inland port. In the 18th century, Wakefield traded in corn, coal and textiles.