Sandal Magna

Sandal Magna or Sandal is a suburb of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England with a population in 2001 of 5,432.[1] An ancient settlement, it is the site of Sandal Castle and is mentioned in the Domesday Book. It is 2 miles (3.2 km) south from Wakefield, 8 miles (13 km) north of Barnsley.[2] The Battle of Wakefield was fought here in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses.[3]

Sandal
Sandal Castle remains
Sandal Location within West Yorkshire
Population	5,432
OS grid reference	SE340180
Metropolitan borough	City of Wakefield
Metropolitan county	West Yorkshire
Region	Yorkshire and the Humber
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	WAKEFIELD
Postcode district	WF2
Dialling code	01924
Police	West Yorkshire
Fire	West Yorkshire
Ambulance	Yorkshire
UK Parliament	Hemsworth

History

Toponymy

The name Sandal derives from the Early Scandinavian sandr meaning sand or gravel and healh, a meadow.[4]

Early history

In the Domesday Book of 1086 Sandal is recorded as a berewic (a village where barley was grown) in Wachefeld (Wakefield) where there was a church with a priest. The church was on the site of the present church of St Helen.[5]

William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (1081–1138) was granted the Sandal estates in 1107 and began the building of Sandal Castle which became the baronial seat of the lords of the manor of Wakefield.[6][7]

In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was killed on 30 December in the Battle of Wakefield between Sandal Castle and St Helens Church.

There are records of mining for coal and quarrying for stone in the 14th century.[8]

The highwayman, John Nevison was arrested on 6 March 1684 at the Three Houses Inn and tried for the murder of Darcy Fletcher, a constable who had tried to arrest him near Howley Hall at Soothill in Batley.[9]

Geography

Sandal, situated on the south side of the River Calder on the road from Wakefield to Barnsley, covers 1,700 acres (688 ha).[10] It is 2 miles (3.2 km) from Wakefield, 8 miles (13 km) from Barnsley, 9 miles (14 km) from Pontefract, 15 miles (24 km) from Leeds, 19 miles (31 km) from Bradford, 25 miles (40 km) from Sheffield, and 30 miles (48 km) from York. The main road through Sandal is the A61 Wakefield to Barnsley road.

Location grid

St Helen's Church

Governance

Sandal was anciently a parish town in the Agbrigg Division of the wapentake of Agbrigg and Morley in the liberty of Wakefield, West Riding of Yorkshire.[2] Following the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, Sandal Magna became one of the 17 constituent parishes of the Wakefield Poor Law Union formed in 1837.[11]

Religion

Sandal Magna's church is dedicated to St. Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great. At the time of the Norman Conquest Sandal Church was a possession of the crown. The Saxon church was recorded as one of two churches in the Wakefield manor in the Domesday Book of 1086.

In about 1150 the first church was replaced by a second church in the shape of a Latin cross by Earl Warenne of Sandal Castle. It was enlarged in about 1180 and almost completely rebuilt in the first half of the 14th century. The church was altered and extended after 1505 and the present church extensively restored and enlarged in 1872.[12]

Transportation

The Sandal and Agbrigg railway station[13] on the Wakefield line (part of the West Yorkshire Metro) with services operated by Northern[14] is at the northeast side of the neighbourhood and serves Sandal and the adjacent suburb of Agbrigg.

Amenities

Largely a residential area, its amenities include a library,[15] schools,[16] the Anglican church of St Helen,[17] a Methodist church [18] and an Asda supermarket.[19]

References

Notes

1. Sandal Neighbourhood Profile (PDF), Wakefield MDC, archived from the original (PDF) on 15 June 2011, retrieved 12 March 2010
2. The ancient parish of Sandal Magna, Genuki, retrieved 10 March 2010
3. The Battle of Wakefield 1460, www.wars-of-the-roses.com, archived from the original on 18 March 2009, retrieved 7 May 2009
4. Walker 1966, p. 39
5. Walker 1966, p. 42
6. Butler 1991, p. 19
7. Sandal Castle, www.richard111.com, retrieved 7 May 2009
8. Walker 1966, p. 105
9. Wales, Tim, "Nevison [Nevinson], John [William] (d. 1684), highwayman", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 12 April 2013
10. Lewis, Samuel (1848), "Sandall, Great (St. Helen)", A Topographical Dictionary of England, British History Online, pp. 580–583, retrieved 1 May 2010
11. Wakefield Workhouses, workhouses.org.uk, archived from the original on 5 June 2011, retrieved 27 June 2010
12. Church History, Sandal Magna Church, retrieved 12 March 2010
13. "Sandal & Agbrigg (SNA)". National Rail. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
14. "42 Train times 10 December 2017–19 May 2018 – Leeds to Sherfield and Doncaster (Wakefield Line)" (PDF). Retrieved 29 December 2017.
15. Sandal Library, www.wakefield.gov.uk, archived from the original on 27 December 2008, retrieved 17 June 2009
16. "Wakefield Sandal Magna Junior And Infants School Wakefield: Read Parent Reviews & Rankings". www.schoolsnet.com. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
17. "Welcome: We warmly welcome you to the website of The Parish of Sandal Magna". www.sandalmagna.com. Retrieved 17 June 2009.
18. "Home". www.sandalmethodistchurch.org. Retrieved 17 January 2018.
19. "ASDA Store Locator". www.multimap.com. Retrieved 17 June 2009.

Bibliography

• Butler, Lawrence AS (1991). Sandal Castle, Wakefield: the history and archaeology of a medieval castle. Wakefield Historical Publications, 30. Wakefield, West Yorkshire: Wakefield Historical Publications. ISBN 9780901869319. OCLC 26361664.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Walker, John William (1966) [Originally printed by The West Yorkshire (i.e. Yorkshire) Printing Co Limited, Wakefield, Privately printed 1939]. Wakefield its History and People. Vol.1&2. New preface of Vol. 2 by H. Milnes Walker (3rd ed.). Wakefield: S.R. Publishers. OCLC 155230198.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)