Hide

Almondbury, Yorkshire, England. Further historical information.

hide
Hide
Hide

ALMONDBURY

ALMONDBURY, a parish-town, in Agbrigg division of Agbrigg and Morley, liberty of Pontefract; (Thorpe Ville, the seat of John Dobson, Esq.) 2 miles SE. of Huddersfield, 10 from Halifax, 10½ from Penistone, 11 from Wakefield, 41 from York. Pop. 5,679. The Church is a vicarage, dedicated to All-Saints (see Churches for photograph), in the deanry of Pontefract, value, £20. 7s. 11d. Patrons, the Trustees of the Free Grammar School of Clitheroe, (Lanc.)

Here is a free grammar school founded by patent of King James I. and now endowed with about £120. per annum. Here is supposed to have been a Roman station, the Cambodunum of Antoninus, as there are marks of an old rampart, and some ruins of a wall, and of a castle. In the Saxon times it was the seat of royalty, and graced with a church built by Paulinus, the Northumberland apostle, and dedicated to St. Alban. Afterwards a castle was built here, which was confirmed to Henry Lacy, by King Stephen. --Camden.

The late Dr. Whittaker says "that the whole" of what Camden states respecting this place, "Is so hypothetical, as scarcely to merit a confutation. First, Almondbury is not Cambodunum, which has been decisively fixed at Slack. Secondly, it, is not Roman at all, wanting every symptom which belongs either to the site or the structure of a Roman encampment. Thirdly, it is unquestionably Saxon," &c. Of the castle hill, Dr. Whittaker has given us a ground plan from which it appears to occupy upwards of eleven acres. "The crown of the hill has been strongly fortified by a double wall and trenches; the area within has also been subdivided into an outer and inner enclosure from the gate, and the remains of mortar and stones almost vitrified, prove beyond all controversy that the place has been destroyed by fire." --Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete.
[Description(s) edited from various 19th century sources by Colin Hinson © 2013]