How to get there  

Road - Junction 31 of the M62 and follow the A655 road into Normanton  

Rail - Metro Station - Leeds/Sheffield line  

Bus - Main bus stop - High Street/ Market Place  

History

Normanton is an ancient town, dating from well before the Norman conquest. It formed part of the Kingdom of Elmete, which was destroyed by King Edwin of Northumbria in the first quarter of the seventh century. Scandinavians settled 300 years later renaming it Northannatun.

Normanton was mentioned in the Doomsday book of 1086, being at that time known as Normantune. The community of that time was enclosed by a great earthernwork barrier, the remains of which can be seen in Haw Hill park on Castleford Road.    

John Freeston (b.1512) led a largely unrecorded life but in his will founded and endowed Normanton Grammar School. Freeston High School, of course, retains his name today.  

The other great Elizabethan of the area is known as Sir Martin Frobisher (b.1538) although history records that he variously scribed his name as Martyn Ffurbussher, Martin Furbissher and Martin Froobisher. He was one of the ablest of the great seamen of that age and was knighted in 1588 for his role in the defeat of the Spanish Armada. He was mortally wounded during a successful battle against Spanish forces in 1594.  

Railways

Normanton remained a predominantly agricultural community up to the mid-19th century with less than 500 people living within its boundary by the early 1800s. The shape of Normanton changed dramatically following the construction of the Derby/Leeds railway under the watchful eye of rail pioneer George Stephenson. The first train stopped at Normanton on 30 June 1840. The same year York/Midland and Manchester/Leeds lines extended to Normanton thereby giving the town access to much of the country.

The station was, for the next ten years or so, the most important in England, employing over 700 people who looked after the station's 700,000 passengers a year. In Victorian times Normanton station was one of the most important stations in the north and can boast that Queen Victoria stopped over in The Station Hotel.  

Mining

The coming of the railways enabled the locally mined coal to be sent across the country. Demand soon outstripped supply and many more shafts were sunk to reach the rich coal seams under the town. In 1871 Dom Pedro, the Emperor of Brazil visited Normanton with his Empress and gave his name (albeit in a slightly altered form) to the Don Pedro colliery at Hopetown. Today roads in the area of the former colliery retain the name. At their peak the Collieries employed over 10,000 men most of whom wanted to move themselves and their families to Normanton.  

Housing was in very short supply so colliery companies provided hundreds of houses close to their respective mines. By 1880 the population had increased to around 15,000. Despite the extra housing there was insufficient to meet demand. The medical officer for health reported in 1884 that one small terrace house (opposite the present Woodhouse Hill club) had some 14 lodgers, this as well as the resident family!

1886 saw disaster at the Silkstone colliery in Altofts, an underground explosion killed 22 men and 53 horses. The resulting inquiry and subsequent years led to the forming of the world's first mines rescue school there in 1901.  

Brick Making

Thomas Kirk was living with his family in Nottingham in 1866. His work as a brick maker had dried up, so with no money and a growing family, things were desperate. Thomas had heard of a small Yorkshire village, Normanton and the rumours that it was turning into an important junction on the railways. Leaving their families in Nottingham, Thomas and his brother in law set off for Normanton in search of work which they found at a brickyard on Wakefield Road.

Thirty years later, Thomas Kirk and his sons used their life savings to put a down payment on their own brick making machinery and the Normanton Brick Company was born. Over 100 years later the company is still in operation with descendants of Thomas Kirk still employed at its Altofts site. At its height the Normanton Brick Company produced an average of six million bricks per year, each brick embossed then, as now with the name of the company.  

The Future

That boom period is long gone, the station which once employed 700 people is now unmanned and a pale shadow of its former glory, the collieries are long closed but Normanton can look to the future with confidence. The town is enviously located in the centre of excellent road and rail networks that link it with the whole of Britain and beyond.

The growth of the towns various industrial estates, together with the impressive Europort terminal are testament to this future and are attracting some of this countries biggest companies back to Normanton once again.