Wakefield

Sister cities

• Konin
• Girona
• Castrop-Rauxel
• Belgorod
• Herne
• Alfeld (Leine)
• Hénin-Beaumont
• Castres
• Xiangyang

History

The name Wakefield may derive from 'Waca's field' – the open land belonging to someone named 'Waca' – or could have evolved from the Old English word wacu, meaning 'a watch or wake', and feld, an open field in which a wake or festival was held. In the Domesday Book of 1086, it was written Wachefeld and also as Wachefelt. Flint and stone tools and later bronze and iron implements have been found at Lee Moor and Lupset in the Wakefield area showing evidence of human activity since prehistoric times. This part of Yorkshire was home to the Brigantes until the Roman occupation in AD 43. A Roman road from Pontefract passing Streethouse, Heath Common, Ossett Street Side, through Kirklees and on to Manchester crossed the River Calder by a ford at Wakefield near the site of Wakefield Bridge. A large group of coin moulds, the Lingwell Gate coin moulds, representing Romano-British coin forgery were found at Lingwell Gate between 1697 and 1879. Wakefield was probably occupied again, this time by the Angles, in the 5th or 6th century, and after AD 876 the area was controlled by the Vikings who founded twelve hamlets or thorpes around Wakefield. They divided the area into wapentakes and Wakefield was part of the Wapentake of Agbrigg. The settlement grew near a crossing place on the River Calder around three roads, Westgate, Northgate and Kirkgate. The "gate" suffix derives from Old Norse ' meaning road and kirk, from ' indicates there was a church. Before 1066 the manor of Wakefield belonged to Edward the Confessor and it passed to William the Conqueror after the Battle of Hastings. After the Conquest Wakefield was a victim of the Harrying of the North in 1069 when William the Conqueror took revenge on the local population for resistance to Norman rule. The…

Geography

Wakefield is south-east of Leeds and south-west of York on the eastern edge of the Pennines in the lower Calder Valley. The city centre is sited on a low hill on the north bank of the River Calder close to a crossing place where it is spanned by the 14th-century, nine-arched, stone Chantry Bridge and a reinforced concrete bridge built in 1929–1930. It is at the junction of major north–south routes to Sheffield, Leeds and Doncaster and west–east routes to Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Pontefract. Wakefield is within the area of the Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire & Yorkshire coalfield and lies on the middle coal measures and sandstones laid down in the Carboniferous period. Wakefield includes the former outlying villages of Alverthorpe, Thornes, Sandal, Portobello, Belle Vue, Agbrigg, Lupset, Kettlethorpe and Flanshaw. In the 2011 Census, Newton Hill, Outwood, Stanley and Wrenthorpe were counted as parts of Wakefield, having been classified separately in the 2001 Census.

Most-observed species

• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  14,302
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  12,446
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  11,637
• Eurasian Blackbird

  Turdus merula Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  11,348
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  10,593
• Black-headed Gull

  Chroicocephalus ridibundus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  10,098
• Eurasian Blue Tit

  Cyanistes caeruleus (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  10,069
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  9,093

Most recent

• M 3.4 — 2025-12-03
  0 km ESE of Carnforth, United Kingdom
• M 2.7 — 2023-06-28
  2 km SE of Cheadle, United Kingdom
• M 2.8 — 2020-01-23
  1 km NW of Stockton-on-Tees, United Kingdom
• M 2.6 — 2014-10-28
  2 km NNE of Hucknall, United Kingdom
• M 2.9 — 2013-01-18
  0 km NE of Hathern, United Kingdom
• M 3.6 — 2011-01-03
  5 km S of Masham, United Kingdom