Early Discoveries:
On the Roman road network
People have known for a very long time that Castleford was a Roman place on one of the main Roman roads in Britain. Lists of places along the roads of the Roman Empire were written down in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD. These were copied later and preserved in medieval documents.
A visit by John Leland in c. 1534
People in England first began to be interested in visiting and describing historic places in the 1500s. John Leland was the first of these antiquarians to visit Castleford and make a record of what he saw. In Castleford he saw foundations that were probably part of the Roman fort near the church, but he didn’t recognise them. Instead he thought they must be much more recent.
‘… From Pontefract to Castelleford Village 2.Miles, most by enclosid Ground. One shoid me there a Garth by the Chirch Yard, where many straung thingges of Fundations hath be found: and he sayid that ther had beene a Castelle, but it was rather sum Manor Place …’