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 Hospital Pontefract Hospital Pontefract Hospital is an acute District General Hospital in Pontefract, West Yorkshire operated by the Mid Yorkshire Hospitals NHS Trust. The original hospital in Pontefract was the Pontefract Dispensary which was established in Sessions House Yard in 1812. The foundation stone for a new hospital in Southgate was laid by Hugh Childers, Secretary of State for War on 7 May 1880; it was opened by John Rhodes, the Mayor of Wakefield, on 8 December 1880. The facility became Pontefract General Infirmary on the formation of the National Health Service in 1948. A new hospital, to be known as