Crofton

West Yorkshire History Centre

Primose Hill · 3.1 miles

The West Yorkshire History Centre offers a specialised museum experience centred on the county’s documentary heritage. Housed in a contemporary building on Kirkgate in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, the structure was designed by the architectural practice Broadway Malyan and is wrapped in a metal mesh that is illuminated with shifting colours after dark, giving the venue a distinctive evening presence. The centre’s collections stem from the West Riding Registry of Deeds, which opened on Kirkgate in 1704 as England’s first deeds registry. After a relocation to Newstead Road in 1932, the archive returned to a new Kirkgate site in 2016, by which stage it held more than ten million records. Among the holdings are around seven million deeds, surviving documents from the West Riding dating back to 1194, the National Coal Board’s local records, and the archives of Stanley Royd Hospital. The ground floor accommodates a local history centre for public use, while the upper floors store the extensive archive material. Management of the facility is provided by West Yorkshire Joint Services. Classified as a history museum, the West Yorkshire History Centre lies within the Wakefield area and the nearest town identified by mapping data is Primrose Hill. Visitors can reach the building via Kirkgate; the site operates under the policies of the joint services that run it, and the premises include the museum’s public spaces and archive areas.

Thornes Park

Thornes · 3.7 miles

Thornes Park is a large public park situated close to the centre of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. Along with Clarence Park and Holmfield Park it forms a large parkland to the south west of the city.

Pontefract Museum

Pontefract · 5.6 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.

RSPB St Aidan's

Methley · 6.8 miles

Former opencast coal workings have been reshaped into a 355-hectare wetland reserve on the edge of the River Aire, between Leeds and Castleford in West Yorkshire. The area, once part of the St Aidan’s and Lowther North opencast sites and sections of the former Savile Colliery, was flooded in March 1988 after a slope failure released around 17 million litres of water. Remedial works, authorised by a specific Act of Parliament, drained the lake and allowed the river to be re-routed before mining finally ceased in 2002. The site opened to the public in May 2013 under the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) and, after a lease agreement with Leeds City Council in March 2017, has remained a fully operational nature park, open every day apart from Christmas Day. Visitors can explore a network of paths that wind through reedbeds, wetland, meadow and woodland, supporting species such as Eurasian bittern, little owl, western marsh harrier and the nationally rare black-necked grebe. The reserve also hosts breeding populations of black-headed gull, northern lapwing and common redshank. Activities include bird-watching, cycling, walking, jogging, horse riding and dog walking. A distinctive feature is the preserved “Oddball” walking dragline excavator, the largest of its kind in Western Europe, which is viewable during open days organised by the Friends of St Aidan’s. The nature park is reachable via the paths alongside the River Aire and lies roughly two miles from Woodlesford railway station, with nearby residential areas including Allerton Bywater, Mickletown and Methley. Admission is managed by the RSPB.

South Elmsall and Moorthorpe War Memorial

South Elmsall · 6.8 miles

First World War memorial, 1923, by Wilfrid Bond of Grantham. Second World War inscriptions added later. Market-cross style design

Monk Bretton Priory

Cundy Cross · 6.8 miles

The ruined medieval complex at Lundwood offers a glimpse of a Cluniac priory founded in 1154 by Adam Fitswane. Situated in the village of Lundwood, close to the settlement of Monk Bretton in the Barnsley borough of South Yorkshire, the site lies a short distance from the town of Cundy Cross. The remains include the outlines of the church and cloister, which have been the focus of archaeological work since the 1920s and more recently under a survey led by Dr Hugh Willmott of the University of Sheffield. Visitors can walk among the stone foundations and view interpretive information provided by English Heritage, the body that now cares for the scheduled ancient monument. The priory originally bore the name Priory of St Mary Magdalene of Lund before adopting the name of the neighbouring village. In 1350 Prior John de Birthwaite received a land grant from Sir William de Notton and his wife Isabel, intended to fund a chantry chapel at Woolley Church. The monastic community was dissolved on 30 November 1538, after which the property passed to the Blithman family, was sold to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury in 1580, and later given to his son Henry. Today the site is open to the public under English Heritage management, with visitor details available on the English Heritage website. No admission fee or specific facilities are listed in the supplied material.