Wakefield is a cathedral city in

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 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 – Wakefield BUASD, code E35000474 The city is the administrative centre of the wider

City of Wakefield The City of Wakefield is a local government district with the status of a city and metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Wakefield, the largest settlement, is the administrative centre of the district. The population of the City of ...

metropolitan district, which had a population of , the most populous district in England. It is part of the

West Yorkshire Built-up Area The West Yorkshire Built-up Area, previously known as the West Yorkshire Urban Area is a term used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to refer to a conurbation in West Yorkshire, England, based on the cities of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefi ...

and the

Yorkshire and The Humber Yorkshire and the Humber is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The population in 2011 was 5,284,000 with its largest settlements being Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Hull, and York. It is ...

region. In 1888, it was one of the last group of towns to gain city status due to having a

cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the '' cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denomination ...

. The city has a

town hall In local government, a city hall, town hall, civic centre (in the UK or Australia), guildhall, or a municipal building (in the Philippines), is the chief administrative building of a city, town, or other municipality. It usually houses ...

and county hall, as the former administrative centre of the city's

county borough County borough is a term introduced in 1889 in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to refer to a borough or a city independent of county council control, similar to the unitary authorities created since the 1990s. An equivalent ter ...

and

metropolitan borough A metropolitan borough (or metropolitan district) is a type of local government district in England. Created in 1974 by the Local Government Act 1972, metropolitan boroughs are defined in English law as metropolitan districts within metropolitan ...

as well as

county town In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a county town is the most important town or city in a county. It is usually the location of administrative or judicial functions within a county and the place where the county's members of Parliament are elect ...

to both the

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 ...

and West Yorkshire, respectively. The

Battle of Wakefield 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 ...

took place in 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 ...

, and the city was a

Royalist A royalist supports a particular monarch as head of state for a particular kingdom, or of a particular dynastic claim. In the abstract, this position is royalism. It is distinct from monarchism, which advocates a monarchical system of governme ...

stronghold in the

Civil War A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

. Wakefield became an important

market town A market town is a settlement most common in Europe that obtained by custom or royal charter, in the Middle Ages, a market right, which allowed it to host a regular market; this distinguished it from a village or city. In Britain, small rural ...

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 mining and textiles.

History

Toponymy

The name ''Wakefield'' may derive from "Waca's field" – the open land belonging to someone named "Waca" or could have evolved from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

word ''wacu'', meaning "a watch or wake", and ''feld'', an open field in which a wake or festival was held. 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 manusc ...

of 1086, it was written ''Wachefeld'' and also as ''Wachefelt''.

Early history

Flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

and stone tools and later

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

and iron implements have been found at Lee Moor and Lupset in the Wakefield area showing evidence of human activity since prehistoric times. This part of Yorkshire was home to the

Brigantes The Brigantes were Ancient Britons who in pre-Roman times controlled the largest section of what would become Northern England. Their territory, often referred to as Brigantia, was centred in what was later known as Yorkshire. The Greek geogr ...

until the Roman occupation in AD 43. A Roman road from

Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, east of Wakefield and south of Castleford. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the towns in the City of Wake ...

passing Streethouse, Heath Common, Ossett Street Side, through

Kirklees Kirklees is a local government district of West Yorkshire, England, governed by Kirklees Council with the status of a metropolitan borough. The largest town and administrative centre of Kirklees is Huddersfield, and the district also includes ...

and on to

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

crossed the River Calder by a ford at Wakefield near the site of Wakefield Bridge. A large group of coin moulds, the

Lingwell Gate coin moulds The Lingwell Gate coin moulds are a group of Roman, clay coin moulds used in the forgery of coinage found at Lingwell Gate between 1697 and 1879. As of April 2021, there were 288 confirmed moulds in UK museums. Discovery The coin-moulds were fi ...

, representing Romano-British coin forgery were found at Lingwell Gate between 1697 and 1879. Wakefield was probably occupied again this time by the Angles in the 5th or 6th century and after AD 876 the area was controlled by the

Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

who founded twelve hamlets or ''thorpes'' around Wakefield. They divided the area into wapentakes and Wakefield was part of the Wapentake of Agbrigg. The settlement grew near a crossing place on the River Calder around three roads, Westgate, Northgate and Kirkgate. The "gate" suffix derives from Old Norse ' meaning road and kirk, from ' indicates there was a church. Before 1066 the

manor Manor may refer to: Land ownership *Manorialism or "manor system", the method of land ownership (or "tenure") in parts of medieval Europe, notably England *Lord of the manor, the owner of an agreed area of land (or "manor") under manorialism *Man ...

of Wakefield belonged to

Edward the Confessor Edward the Confessor ; la, Eduardus Confessor , ; ( 1003 – 5 January 1066) was one of the last Anglo-Saxon English kings. Usually considered the last king of the House of Wessex, he ruled from 1042 to 1066. Edward was the son of Æth ...

and it passed to

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first House of Normandy, Norman List of English monarchs#House of Norman ...

after the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...

. After the

Conquest Conquest is the act of military subjugation of an enemy by force of arms. Military history provides many examples of conquest: the Roman conquest of Britain, the Mauryan conquest of Afghanistan and of vast areas of the Indian subcontinent, t ...

Wakefield was a victim of the

Harrying of the North The Harrying of the North was a series of campaigns waged by William the Conqueror in the winter of 1069–1070 to subjugate northern England, where the presence of the last House of Wessex, Wessex claimant, Edgar Ætheling, had encouraged An ...

in 1069 when William the Conqueror took revenge on the local population for resistance to Norman rule. The settlement was recorded as ''Wachfeld'' in the

of 1086, and covered a much greater area than present day Wakefield, much of which was described as "waste". The manor was granted by

the crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, Lord of Lewes, Seigneur de Varennes (died 1088), was a Norman nobleman created Earl of Surrey under William II Rufus. He is among the few known from documents to have fought under William the Conqueror at ...

whose descendants, the Earls Warenne, inherited it after his death in 1088. The construction of Sandal Castle began early in the 12th century. A second castle,

Wakefield Castle Wakefield Castle, Lowe Hill or Lawe Hill was a castle built in the 12th century on a hill on the north side of the River Calder near Wakefield, England. Its name derives from the Anglo Saxon ''hlaew'' meaning a mound or cairn, possibly a buria ...

, was built at Lawe Hill on the north side of the Calder but was abandoned. Wakefield and its environs formed the

caput Latin words and phrases {{Short pages monitor