Pontefract Castle Pontefract Castle Pontefract (or, Pomfret) Castle is a castle ruin in the town of Pontefract, in West Yorkshire, England. King Richard II is thought to have died there. It was the site of a series of famous sieges during the 17th-century English Civil War. The castle, on a rock to the east of the town above All Saints' Church, was constructed in approximately 1070 by Ilbert de Lacy. on land which had been granted to him by William the Conqueror as a reward for his support during the Norman Conquest. There is, however, evidence of earlier occupation of the site.
Pontefract Pontefract Pontefract is a historic market town in West Yorkshire, England, near the A1 (or Great North Road) and the M62 motorway. Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250, increasing to 30,881 at the 2011 Census. Pontefract's motto is "Post mortem patris pro filio", Latin for "After the death of the father, support the son", a reference to the English Civil War Royalist sympathies. At the end of the 11th century, the modern township of Pontefract consisted