Castleford Tour - Hightown and Whitwood (Castleford Webpages)

Castleford Webpages

Whitwood

Located at the west of Castleford is Whitwood, home to Europort Wakefield where businesses make use of the rail link.

Whitwood is in Castleford about a mile to the south-west of the town centre. It is just off junction 31 of the M62 motorway. It is recorded in the Domesday Book of the eleventh century as the settlement of Witewode, named after a wood of silver birch trees. Although some coal mining existed there in the eighteenth century it was not until the mid-nineteenth century that the pit owner Henry Briggs began the collieries in the area. After his death his son commissioned C.F.A. Voysey to design terraced houses for the colliery officials.

The family built the Miners' Welfare Institute at the end of the officials' houses, Whitwood Terrace. The Institute is now a public house called the Rising Sun. Later a memorial hall in memory of Arthur Currer Briggs was built behind the Institute.

In Whitwood are the houses and the public house, the Rising Sun, designed by Voysey	A new sculpture depicting Whitwood's heritage with leaves of the silver birch (the white wood) has been erected on Wood lane
This is Whitwood College. It has been sold and will be replaced by new housing.	On the way into the town centre at Hightown is this sign designed as a roman mosaic: