Wentbridge
| Wentbridge | |
|---|---|
 Wentbridge
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| Wentbridge shown within West Yorkshire | |
| OS grid reference | SE488173 |
| • London | 155 mi (249 km) SSE |
| Metropolitan borough | |
| Metropolitan county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | PONTEFRACT |
| Postcode district | WF8 |
| Dialling code | 01977 |
| Police | West Yorkshire |
| Fire | West Yorkshire |
| Ambulance | Yorkshire |
| EU Parliament | Yorkshire and the Humber |
| UK Parliament | |
Wentbridge is a small village in the City of Wakefield district of West Yorkshire, England. It lies around 3 miles (5 km) southeast of its nearest town of size, Pontefract, close to the A1 road.
The village contains one of the largest viaducts in Europe, its significance sanctioned by the Museum of Modern Art. Wentbridge is one of a number of locations that have connections to the legend of Robin Hood.
Wentbridge sits in the heart of the Went Valley, on the northernmost edge of the medieval vale of Barnsdale, seen by many medievalists as the official home of Robin Hood. During the Middle Ages the village of Wentbridge was itself sometimes referred to by the name of Barnsdale because it was the main settlement in the Forest of Barnsdale, and it was possible to look down upon the village from the Saylis. The county boundary follows the A1 from the River Went to Barnsdale Bar, which is the southernmost point of North Yorkshire. Close by to the southwest is the Roman Ridge, a Roman road which closely follows the course of the modern-day A639. To the north is Darrington. Earlier historians have usually assumed that this district was heavily wooded. However, aerial photography and excavation have shown that the region has always been a largely pastoral landscape dotted with occasional settlements.
The village of Wentbridge straddles the River Went, from which it takes its name, along a north-south axis and sits less than a mile from the county boundary with North Yorkshire to the east. The village is so named because it used to be the site of the Great North Road's bridge over the River Went. Entrance to the village was down a steep valley which would have been a problem before motorised transport and eventually became a bottleneck. Wentbridge House was one of the properties near the river and on the Great North Road. It still exists today and is called Wentbridge House Hotel.
Within close proximity to the village of Wentbridge there are, or were, some notable landmarks which relate to Robin Hood. The earliest-known Robin Hood place-name reference - in Yorkshire or anywhere else - occurs in a deed of 1322 from the two cartularies of Monk Bretton Priory, near the town of Barnsley. The cartulary deed refers in Latin to a landmark named 'the Stone of Robert Hode' (Robin Hood’s Stone), which was located in the Barnsdale area. According to J. W. Walker this was on the eastern side of the Great North Road, a mile south of Barnsdale Bar. On the opposite side of the road once stood Robin Hood's Well, which has since been relocated six miles north-west of Doncaster, on the south-bound side of the Great North Road.
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Wikipedia