Sir John Betjeman described Pontefract thus, 'The light and dangling licorice flowers / Gave off the sweetest smells; / From various black Victorian towers / The Sunday evening bells / Came pealing over dales and hills / And tanneries and silent mills / And lowly streets where country stops / And little shuttered corner shops.'
The tanneries, mills and shuttered corner shops have since been replaced by, well, public houses, mainly. So much so, in fact, that it is believed that the town now has the highest concentration of pubs in the whole of the UK. We sent Vincent Krasauskas to investigate.
