LATEST FROM THE WHITE SHIRE

There are places in Yorkshire where you can stand today and it takes a bit of imagination to picture what happened there hundreds of years ago. Towton is one of them. Look across the fields between Saxton and Towton and, for the most part, you are looking at ordinary Yorkshire countryside. Fields, hedges, tracks and a few roads. But on Palm Sunday, 29 March 1461, this quiet stretch of Yorkshire became the scene of one of the largest and bloodiest battles ever fought on Eng

Ferrybridge is a place I've always had a bit of a soft spot for. Years ago, I read a book that described it as something along the lines of “a post-industrial town that only a Yorkshireman could love.” I can't remember the author or the exact words, but the line has always made me laugh.

There are plenty of people who drive into Wakefield every day without giving much thought to the old bridge across the River Calder. But once you know the story connected with Wakefield Bridge and the Chantry Chapel, you look at it rather differently. Lyn and I pass here on our Wakefield walk, and this quiet little corner of the city is associated with one of the more brutal stories from the Wars of the Roses.

There are some places where it's difficult to imagine the history that happened there. Sandal Castle isn't one of them. Stand among the ruins looking out across Wakefield and the surrounding countryside and it still feels like a place that ought to have a story to tell. Lyn and I have walked around Sandal Castle and the surrounding area, and knowing what happened here in the winter of 1460 makes the ruins considerably more interesting.