Out & About - Wakefield

I usually try to visit the place featured in this series before writing about it. Strictly I have, because I arrived by bus one Saturday lunchtime in 2016 at Wakefield Bus Station and walked across the City to Wakefield Westgate station where I caught the train to Leeds, and then home.

Half of the hour that I was in the city was spent in the Virgin Trains First Class Lounge! I also have previously visited the excellent National Coal Mining Museum for England at Overton, some seven miles by bus out of Wakefield, and thus ruled out for this article. A day in Wakefield by train via Leeds can revolve around the Cathedral and the Hepworth Art Gallery. Wakefield is a city of 77,000 people on the river Calder, on the eastern edge of the Pennines. The railway arrived in 1840 when Kirkgate Station was built, later joined by the Westgate station.

Kirkgate has recently been regenerated, but was previously one of the most neglected stations on the national network. The most prominent landmark in Wakefield is the Cathedral, which at 247 feet (75m) has the tallest spire in Yorkshire. Other landmarks in the Civic Quarter on Wood Street include the Grade II* Neoclassical Crown Court of 1810, Wakefield Town Hall designed by T.W. Collcutt and opened in 1880, and the Queen Anne style County Hall of 1898 which are Grade I listed. St John’s Church and Square, St John’s North and South Parade are part of residential development dating from the Georgian period. The Cathedral is a 14th century parish church (formerly All Saints) built on the site of earlier Saxon and Norman churches, restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott in the 19th century, and raised to cathedral status in 1888. There is also a well-preserved chantry chapel of St. Mary the Virgin on Wakefield Bridge. In May 2011 The Hepworth gallery opened on the south bank of the River Calder near Wakefield Bridge, displaying work by local artists Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, and other British and international artists. It is thought to be the largest purpose-built gallery to open in recent times, designed by British architect David Chipperfield and cost £35 million to build. Five weeks after opening it had received 100,000 visitors.

The Hepworth Wakefield is a structure composed of ten trapezoidal blocks; its upper-level galleries are lit by natural light from large windows in the pitched roofs. Its windows have views of the river, historic waterfront and the city skyline. The building’s façade is clad with self-compacting pigmented concrete made on site, the first of its kind in the United Kingdom. The architects selected the material to emphasise the gallery’s sculptural appearance. The gallery has ground-floor visitor facilities, including a café bar overlooking the river, a learning studio, a 100-seat auditorium and shop. I understand the building’s brutalist design is not universally popular with local people. But the interior contains works of many well-known artists and is well worth a visit. Wakefield is known as the capital of the Rhubarb Triangle, (Wakefield/Morley/Rothwell), an area notable for growing early forced rhubarb. In July 2005, a sculpture was erected to celebrate this facet of Wakefield, and there is an annual ‘Wakefield Festival of Food, Drink and Rhubarb” which takes place over the last weekend in February which might be an ideal time for my trip back. Enjoy your visit to Wakefield and email me if you get there before I do. Suggestions are also welcomed for other places to be visited in this series.