Sandal Magna or Sandal is a suburb of

Wakefield Wakefield is a cathedral city in West Yorkshire, England located on the River Calder. The city had a population of 99,251 in the 2011 census.https://www.nomisweb.co.uk/census/2011/ks101ew Census 2011 table KS101EW Usual resident population, ...

West Yorkshire West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...

, England with a population in 2001 of 5,432. An ancient

settlement Settlement may refer to: *Human settlement, a community where people live *Settlement (structural), the distortion or disruption of parts of a building * Closing (real estate), the final step in executing a real estate transaction *Settlement (fin ...

, it is the site of

Sandal Castle Sandal Castle is a ruined medieval castle in Sandal Magna, a suburb of the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, overlooking the River Calder. It was the site of royal intrigue and the setting for a scene in one of William Shakespeare ...

and is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

. It is south from Wakefield, north of Barnsley. The Battle of Wakefield was fought here in the 15th century during the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

History

Toponymy

The name Sandal derives from the Early Scandinavian ' meaning sand or gravel and ', a meadow.

Early history

In the

of 1086 Sandal is recorded as a ' (a village where barley was grown) in Wachefeld (Wakefield) where there was a church with a priest. The church was on the site of the present church of St Helen. William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (1081–1138) was granted the Sandal estates in 1107 and began the building of Sandal Castle which became the baronial seat of the lords of the manor of Wakefield. In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was killed on 30 December in the Battle of Wakefield between Sandal Castle and St Helens Church. There are records of mining for coal and quarrying for stone in the 14th century. The highwayman, John Nevison was arrested on 6 March 1684 at the Three Houses Inn and tried for the murder of Darcy Fletcher, a constable who had tried to arrest him near Howley Hall at Soothill in Batley.

Geography

Sandal, situated on the south side of the River Calder on the road from Wakefield to Barnsley, covers . It is from Wakefield, from Barnsley, from Pontefract, from Leeds, from Bradford, from Sheffield, and from York. The main road through Sandal is the A61 Wakefield to Barnsley road. ''Location grid'' St Helen's Church, Sandal

Governance

Sandal was anciently a parish town in the Agbrigg Division of the

wapentake A hundred is an administrative division that is geographically part of a larger region. It was formerly used in England, Wales, some parts of the United States, Denmark, Southern Schleswig, Sweden, Finland, Norway, the Bishopric of Ösel–Wiek, ...

of Agbrigg and Morley in the liberty of Wakefield,

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire is one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the administrative county County of York, West Riding (the area under the control of West Riding County Council), abbreviated County ...

. Following the

Poor Law Amendment Act The ''Poor Law Amendment Act 1834'' (PLAA) known widely as the New Poor Law, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed by the Whig government of Earl Grey. It completely replaced earlier legislation based on the ''Poor Relief ...

of 1834, Sandal Magna became one of the 17 constituent parishes of the Wakefield Poor Law Union formed in 1837.

Religion

Sandal Magna's church is dedicated to St. Helen, the mother of

Constantine the Great Constantine I ( , ; la, Flavius Valerius Constantinus, ; ; 27 February 22 May 337), also known as Constantine the Great, was Roman emperor from AD 306 to 337, the first one to convert to Christianity. Born in Naissus, Dacia Mediterran ...

. At the time of the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Con ...

Sandal Church was a possession of the crown. The Saxon church was recorded as one of two churches in the Wakefield manor in the

of 1086. In about 1150 the first church was replaced by a second church in the shape of a

Latin cross A Latin cross or ''crux immissa'' is a type of cross in which the vertical beam sticks above the crossbeam, with the three upper arms either equally long or with the vertical topmost arm shorter than the two horizontal arms, and always with a mu ...

by Earl Warenne of Sandal Castle. It was enlarged in about 1180 and almost completely rebuilt in the first half of the 14th century. The church was altered and extended after 1505 and the present church extensively restored and enlarged in 1872.

Transportation

The

Sandal and Agbrigg railway station Sandal and Agbrigg railway station serves the Wakefield suburbs of Sandal and Agbrigg in West Yorkshire, England. It lies on the Wakefield Line and is operated by Northern. History The station was opened in February 1866 as 'Sandal' and wa ...

on the Wakefield line (part of the

West Yorkshire Metro Metro is the passenger information brand used by the West Yorkshire Combined Authority in England. It was formed on 1 April 1974 as the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (WYPTE) at the same time as the metropolitan county of West Yor ...

) with services operated by Northern is at the northeast side of the neighbourhood and serves Sandal and the adjacent suburb of

Agbrigg Agbrigg is a suburb of the city of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. History The village of Agbrigg was historically within the parish of Sandal Magna and a large area of present-day Agbrigg was common land and can be seen on older maps as ...

Amenities

Largely a residential area, its amenities include a library, schools, the Anglican church of St Helen, a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...