YWT Barlow Common

Pontefract Museum

Pontefract · 12 miles

A former Carnegie library now serves as Pontefract Museum, occupying an Art Nouveau building in the centre of Pontefract, West Yorkshire. Designed by George Pennington and opened as a library in 1904, the structure was repurposed for museum use in 1975 after a new library was erected elsewhere. The conversion retained the tiled entrance hall and original furnishings, and the building was entered on the Grade II listed register at the time of its reopening in March 1975. The museum is managed by Wakefield Museums & Castles, offers free admission and provides step-free access throughout, with toilets available on the premises. The displays focus on the town’s archaeological, artistic and social heritage. Exhibits include material from Pontefract Castle and the nearby St John’s Priory, notably the Ackworth Hoard of almost six hundred Civil War-era coins. The collection also illustrates the local liquorice trade, featuring packaging from the famous Pontefract Cakes factories and the sealed ballot box from the country’s first secret ballot in 1872. Additional highlights trace the town’s mining past, decorative and applied arts, fine art, photographs and printed ephemera. Three permanent exhibition spaces house these items, while a separate area accommodates temporary shows, and a reference room preserves archival documents relating to Pontefract’s history.

Drax Priory

Long Drax · 2.5 miles

"In 1868 it was reported that traces of the priory could still be found[2] but field work in the 1980s and 1990s has failed to find any physical remains of it" (source: wikipedia)

Bishopthorpe Palace

Bishopthorpe · 12 miles

Official residence of the Archbishop of York from 1241 to the present day.

YWT Barlow Common

Barlow · 0.1 miles

Three Lakes

Lund · 1.9 miles

Ash Lagoon

Long Drax · 1.9 miles