Pontefract Museum

Salter Row
Pontefract
West Yorkshire
WF8 1BA
England

Website

www.wakefield.gov.uk/CultureAndLeisure/Museums

E-mail

museumsandarts@wakefield.gov.uk

Telephone

Museum office

01977 722 741

Reception

01977 722 740

Fax

01977 722 742

All information is drawn or provided by the venues themselves and every effort is made to ensure it is correct. Please remember to double check opening hours with the venue concerned before making a special visit.
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Pontefract Museum is in a flamboyant Art Nouveau building with a wondeful tiled entrance hall and many original 1904 furnishings. Situated in the centre of town, the Museum has new displays on the archaeology and history of Pontefract. Visitors can find out about the historic events that took place at Pontefract Castle, why the town is so well known for its Pontefract Cakes of liquorice and how Britain's first secret ballot came to be held at the Town Hall. There is a room dedicated to domestic coloured glass made at Knottingley, much of it from the 1930s. The Museum has a lively programme of temporary exhibitions and a resource room full of local history information and a digital archive of 8,000 photographs.

Venue Type:

Museum

 Opening hours

Mon-Fri 10.00-16.30
Sat 10.30-16.30
Open Bank holidays

Closed: Christmas and New Year

 Admission charges

Admission free

The archaeology, social history and decorative art collections include finds from Pontefract Castle and St. John's Priory, siege coins from the English Civil War, packaging from the Pontefract liquorice factories, Bagley's glass and a major archive of locally printed material. Most of the collection has strong associations with Pontefract, including the town's mining history.

Collection details

Archaeology, Archives, Decorative and Applied Art, Fine Art, Social History

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