Pontefract had one industry it could call its own, and that was liquorice. It was probably brought here by monks from Spain, which may explain the local name for liquorice: “Spanish”. There were two religious houses in Pontefract in medieval times: St John’s Priory, a Cluniac Monastery, close to All Saints Church, and St Richard’s Dominican Friary (Black Friars from their habits) in the Friarwood Valley. The Black Friars were a preaching order, not a reclusive sect, who went out into the community to promote the Christian message and counter heresy. Liquorice was known for its medicinal properties and was probably grown by the monks to treat a variety of complaints. It was grown commercially in Pontefract for its root from the 1500s until the 1970s.
Liquorice: The Sweet Root
Liquorice (Glycyrrhiza Glabra) is an herbaceous perennial which grows wild in Mediterranean countries and is cultivated for its roots which can grow to a depth of six feet. It grows best in deep well drained soil and is well suited to the deep loamy soil of Pontefract. The juice extracted from the roots has been used since the time of Hippocrates (the “Father of Medicine” 4th century BC) to treat many complaints, including asthma, eczema and stomach complaints. Known as the sweet root it was chewed by Roman soldiers to relieve thirst while marching. It is still used in the modern pharmaceutic industry, especially in Japan, and is the base compound for some modern medicines used to treat stomach ulcers. However, consuming too much liquorice can cause medical problems: fluid retention and high blood pressure.
Liquorice Confectionery
Sir George Saville in 1614 was the first to stamp out small discs of liquorice for use as a medicine. In 1760 George Dunhill added sugar to make confectionery - Pontefract Cakes. There were 17 factories in Pontefract at its zenith making 25,000 sweets every day, each Pontefract Cake stamped by hand. There are now just two confectionary factories in Pontefract: Haribo (formerly Dunhill) and Valeo (was Tangerine and formerly Wilkinsons). Production is now mechanised and the liquorice root imported from Spain, Italy and Turkey where the liquorice plant grows more quickly in the warm climate and the root can be harvested after 2 – 3 years, rather than 5 years in Pontefract. Unsurprisingly, liquorice growing in Pontefract had become uneconomic by the 1940s.
Pontefract: a garden town
St John’s Priory and St Richard’s Friary were both closed in 1538 at Henry VIII’s Reformation, demolished and soon lost to the memory of the local people. The earliest documentation of liquorice cultivation in Pontefract was in 1600 (Camden’s “Brittania”) and by the early 18th century Pontefract was well known for its gardens and plant nurseries supplying the markets in Leeds and Wakefield with fruit and vegetables. Soon liquorice was being grown all over the town to supply the liquorice industry. The Castle was planted with liquorice after the English Civil War and its dungeon or magazine was used to store the root. Beds of the shrub lined Southgate and Micklegate, and there were plantations in the Friarwood Valley. Town maps from the 1600s onwards show widespread liquorice cultivation. On the 1933 Town Map there are seven liquorice factories shown within a radius of a few hundred yards of the Buttercross.
Friarwood and the Keighleys
The area in the Friarwood Valley where liquorice was cultivated is approximately 10 acres of land now the Friarwood Valley Gardens and the vacant site behind the old Dispensary where Pontefract General Infirmary stood until 2011 when it was demolished. From 1880 when the Dispensary was built, Pontefract General Infirmary gradually extended down the hillside and eventually occupied the whole site east of Friarwood Steps (commonly called Bluebell Steps). The area of what is now the Friarwood Valley Gardens consisted of several small market garden plots. The Borough Engineer’s map from 1945 shows 6 plots, the largest being 4.11 acres belonging to Mr W W Keighley. Four generations of the Keighley family grew liquorice in what is now the bowling green and Rose Garden area of the Valley Gardens from the mid 1800s to 1947. The family originally lived on Mill Hill, then Carleton Road and from about 1900 at the Hazels on Mayors Walk, on the southern edge of the Valley Gardens. William Woodall (Bill) Keighley was the fourth and last generation to grow liquorice in the Valley. A photograph from about 1936 (in the Gallery) shows Bill Keighley and his six year old son in the liquorice field with Pontefract General Infirmary in the background. The labour intensive harvesting of the liquorice root is evident; it was necessary to dig deep trenches to extract the roots.
“Market Grower & Salesman & Fruit Trader” 1929
An article in a publication called the “Market Grower & Salesman & Fruit Trader” dated May 1929 recorded an interview with Bill Keighley who was then aged 30. The article states “…that through the centuries market gardeners have settled at Pontefract for the practice of their craft, that the old town is girded with market gardens and even in the very centre of it there is a stretch of flourishing market gardens such as most readers would envy.” Bill proudly stated that his family had been growing liquorice in Pontefract for more than 100 years but was critical of the declining market for liquorice due to the pharmaceutical industry developing what Bill called “chemical substitutes”. The article reveals some interesting details about the cultivation of liquorice. The root stock was planted in April and it was important that the ground was “bone dry” at the time of planting. Eight tons of farmyard manure per acre was spread before planting, which was sufficient for the 5 years required for the crop to reach maturity. Each bed was 37 inches wide and there were three rows of root stock in each bed. Because growth was slow a variety of other crops were grown between the rows in the early years, especially potatoes which yielded 10 tons per acre. “The (liquorice) crop was lifted when the sap has stopped rising and this is in most years the end of September.” The average liquorice root harvest was 35cwt per acre yielding about £190. Even at today’s prices (£12,000) that doesn’t seem much for all the hard work required over 5 years but Mr Keighley considered liquorice growing to be “quite remunerative”. Possibly the additional crops grown between the rows made the land more productive. The article also detailed the varieties of spring cabbage, broccoli, radishes, lettuce, apples and gooseberries grown by Mr Keighley and was clearly aimed at the specialist readership of the periodical. It ends by mentioning that Bill was Choirmaster at St Michael’s Church in Carleton and Captain of Pontefract Hockey Club. Bill retired in the late 1940s and moved to Scarborough. He sold his land and house to Pontefract Borough Council which at the time was buying up all the plots to create Friarwood Valley Gardens which opened as a Public Park in 1951 as Pontefract’s contribution to the Festival of Britain. There is a small plot of liquorice bushes growing in the Valley Gardens on the eastern side of the Rose Garden. Close by is a bench and flowering cherry tree dedicated to the memory of the two atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Representatives of a Japanese pharmaceutical company visited Pontefract in 1985 and to mark the occasion a Japanese flowering cherry tree was planted and the bench dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the atomic bombs.