THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. XIX. NO. 531.] SATURDAY, JANUARY 28, 1832. [PRICE 2d

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[Illustration: PONTEFRACT CASTLE, 1648.]


PONTEFRACT CASTLE.


Pontrefact, a place of considerable note in English history, is situated
about two miles south-west from Ferrybridge, nine miles nearly east from
Wakefield, and fifteen miles north-west from Doncaster, in Yorkshire. The
origin of the town is unknown; and the etymology of its name has been a
matter of dispute, in which figures a monkish legend ascribing the name of
Ponsfractus, or Pontefract, to the breaking of a bridge, and the fall of
many persons into the river Aire, who were miraculously saved by St.
William, Archbishop of York. The river Ouse and the city of York, however,
put in a stronger claim as the scene of this miracle, and unfortunately
for Pontefract, the town is so named in charters of fifty-three years'
date before the miracle is pretended to have been performed. Still the
etymology is referable to the breaking down of "_some bridge_," (_pons_,
bridge; _fractus_, broken,) but this unravelment is not antiquarian.
Camden says, that in the Saxon times, the name of this town was Kirkby,
which was changed by the Normans to Pontefract, because of a broken bridge
that was there. But as there is no river within two miles of the place,