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 third siege, Pontefract inhabitants, fearing a fourth, petitioned Parliament for the castle to be slighted. In their view, the castle was a magnet for trouble, and in April 1649 demolition began. the ruins of the castle remain and are publicly accessible. Pontefract was the site of Pontefract Priory, a Cluniac priory founded in 1090 by Robert de Lacy dedicated to St John the Evangelist. The priory was dissolved by royal authority in 1539. The abbey maintained the Chartularies of St John, a collection of historic documents later discovered among family papers by Thomas Levett, the High Sheriff of Rutland and