Thank you to everyone who came to our two tours at Sandal Castle yesterday where we looked at the history of the castle and the Battle of Wakefield. It was lovely to see so many of you there and to receive such great feedback on the tours and content. We look forward to seeing you at a future event. Our next talk will be at Pontefract Castle at 2.00pm on Sunday 30th November where we will discussing ‘The Biggest and Bloodiest Battle on English Soil – Towton or Marston Moor?’. The tickets are free and available from the castle itself.

On Saturday 13th September we will be delivering two tours of Sandal Castle discussing a history of the De Warennes, the development of the castle and the Battle of Wakefield, as part of the WMDC Heritage Weekend. The tours will commence at 11.00am and 1.30pm and must be booked via ticketsource or Pontefract Castle itself. The tours have already proven to be very popular and we look forward to seeing everyone on the day. Cafe facilities are available on site if participants would like to get either meals or drinks.

On Saturday 13th September we will be delivering two tours at Sandal Castle – at 11.00am and 1.30pm – on the history of the castle and the De Warenne family and the Battle of Wakefield. Places on the tours are free and can be reserved by contacting Pontefract Castle. Places on the tours are almost full, so if you are interested, please act quickly. We look forward to seeing you there.

There is a significant amount of new research and analysis taking place at this time around the whole winter campaign of 1460/61 and how it has been recorded by both chroniclers and historians. As this new thinking is made known, we will bring this information to our website in this section and in our talks and tours. If anyone has any questions or comments regarding this, please feel free to get in touch via the Contact Us button above.

Thanks to everyone from the Battlefield Trust who came along to our Medieval Day in Wakefield on Saturday 3rd May, where we visited both the Chantry Chapel and Sandal Castle for a history of this fortress and the Battle of Wakefield. It was great to meet everyone and we hope you had a great day. We hope to see you again soon at another event.

Thanks to Sherburn Historical Society for inviting us to give a talk last night on ‘Pontefract Castle and the Pilgrimage of Grace’. It was fantastic to see so many people there – I believe the best turnout they have had – and for that we are really grateful. Thanks for the lovely feedback and we hope everyone had an enjoyable evening, We look forward to hopefully seeing everyone again at some time in the near future.

Thanks to everyone who came along to our last last Sunday on Thomas of Lancaster. It was great to see so many people there and we are really grateful for your continued support. Our next event will be on September 13th at Sandal Castle, when we will be doing 2 tours looking at the history of the castle, with particular emphasis on the De Warenne family. We hope to see you there.

Our first talk of 2025 will take place three weeks today on Sunday 23rd March in the Visitor Centre at Pontefract Castle. The talk is titled ‘Thomas of Lancaster – Saint or Sinner’ and will examine the life and times of one of the great nobles of Pontefract Castle. Tickets are available from the castle itself or via Ticketsource.co.uk and are free. The talk itself will commence at 2.00pm. We hope to see you there.

Today, 30th December is the 564th anniversary of the Battle of Wakefield, which saw the ‘heir’ to the throne, Richard Duke of York and his second son, Edmund, Earl of Rutland, killed in the battle and it’s immediate aftermath. There are numerous theories and ideas as to why Richard gave battle in vain. If you would like to hear about these and how the battle developed, please come along on one of our tours in 2025 or arrange your own tour with us – which are free – by using the ‘contact us’ button above. We hope to see you in 2025.

May we wish all the visitors to our site a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. We will be back in 2025 with more tours and talks whilst we also hope to bring some changes and improvements to this website. Keep visiting the website for more news as 2025 progresses.