England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Castleford All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Castleford lies in south central Yorkshire within the West Riding. Castleford in an industrial town sitting at the junction of the rivers Aire & Calder and lying about 6 miles northwest of the town of Wakefield. Castleford sits at the junction of the A639 road (Leeds to Pontefract) with the A656 (M1 to Pontefract) and south of their crossing of the newly merged rivers, an arched bridge of 1808 makes the crossing. The area is heavily industrialised and underlain with former coal mines. The Aire & Calder were made navigable leading to a large transport trade through Castleford and numerous industries, including potteries, glass bottle manufacture as well as milling and timber storage provided employment to many. Castleford is surrounded by modern communications, the M62 to its some, the A1(M) to the east and M1 to the west as well as rail lines and canals. Nowadays much of the industrial landscape has died and Castleford is somewhat postindustrial and supported by light industry. The Aire drains the parish eastwards to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Castleford is sited at 20 metres above the sea and its valley setting means there are few notable hills albeit a gentle rise to 40 metres or so to Castleford's south. Castleford parish was small for a Yorkshire parish, it covered just over 1,500 acres and supported a population of just under 1,600 parishioners. In Domesday times the parish, recorded as Glass Houghton, was held by Ilbert of Lacy and was small offering just 9 ploughs.

The Church

All Saints' church sits on the western side, appropriately enough, of Church Street and just south of the course of the Aire. Sadly All Saints is not a mediaeval church having been built in 1866 albeit the central tower is reminiscent of early church designs. The church is clearly of little architectural interest for Pevsner as his description is short and terse (his description of Castleford is rather disparaging stating there is not "a single building which would justify a mention"). The church sits in an elevated position with a local sandstone wall buttressing the site, sloping pathways lead in to the churchyard from the southern and northeastern ends of the site. The site is small and closely surrounds the church making the best images obtainable being from the surrounding pavements.