Wakefield
Wakefield, home of the new Hepworth Gallery, is an enigma of Yorkshire. The famous Chantry on 
Chantry Bridge is 650 years old although, in its current form, it reflects drastic Victorian rebuilding. But, other than the Chantry on the extreme edge of the modern city, none of Wakefield existed at all before 1963. The M1 motorway was extended from Rugby to Leeds during 1965 to 1968 and it was during surveying work prior to construction of the motorway that the so-called Rhubarb Tringle was discovered by Tristram Mousemat, RIBA.
Mousemat was working for the Ministry of Transport (Later becoming the Department of Transport) when he was forced, in a blizzard, eastwards from what is now Junction 41 of the M1. Rather than finding shelter he discovered mile after mile of rhubarb fields, many of which where part of a network of candle-lit sheds in which the rhubarb was forced.
 |
 |
| Wakefield in 1961 |
Wakefield now |
In the spring of 1962, Mousemat returned to the area and bartered the land that now constitutes the Wakefield Metropolitan District Borough from two rhubarb farms in exchange for three bricks, a Dansette portable gramophone and Hit the Road Jack by Ray Charles. This was a major success for Mousemat as mains electricty was not available to power the Dansette until late in 1963.
Mousemat immediately flooded much of the land, supporting his shipright business, then commissioned the construction of a medieval-style cathedral (Now known as Wakefield Cathedral) and a branch of TSB (Now Lloyds TSB, of course.) Shortly before completion of the cathedral Mousemat was killed in an unusual incident involving three bricks and a theodolite, leaving all of what is now Wakefield, the A639 and all its surrounding real estate to the British people.
The rest, as they say, is history.