Pontefract Pontefract and Castleford, referred to locally as 'Cas Vegas'. It is reported that Pontefract once held the British record for the town with the most pubs per square mile: indeed, numerous pubs still survive in the town centre in particular, for example Beastfair Vaults, the Liquorice Bush, the Red Lion, the Malt Shovel and the Blackmoor Head. A Wetherspoon public house opened on Horsefair in 2010. Pontefract's deep, sandy soil makes it one of the few British places in which liquorice can successfully be grown. The town has a liquorice-sweet industry; and the famous Pontefract cakes are produced, though the
Pontefract the arrival of the Normans in 1068 is known as the Anglo-Scandinavian age. The modern township of Pontefract consisted of two Anglo-Scandinavian settlements, known as Tanshelf and Kirkby. In Yorkshire, place-name locations often contain the distinctive Danish '-by' i.e. Kirkby. And even today, the major streets in Pontefract are designated by the Danish word 'gate' e.g. Bailygate. The Anglo-Scandinavian township of Tanshelf recorded variously as "Tateshale", "Tateshalla", "Tateshalle" or "Tatessella" in the 1086 "Domesday Book" existed in the region that is today occupied by the town of Pontefract. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle makes its first reference to Tanshelf in the year