Sandal Magna

Sandal Magna or Sandal is a suburb of Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England with a population in 2001 of 5,432. It is an ancient settlement and is the site of Sandal Castle and a parish church that predates the Domesday Book. It is two miles (3 km) south from Wakefield, eight miles (13 km) north of Barnsley, nine west from Pontefract and thirty from York. The Battle of Wakefield was fought here in the 15th century during the Wars of the Roses.HistoryToponymyThe name Sandal derives from the Early Scandinavian ' meaning sand or gravel and ', a meadow.Early HistoryIn the Domesday Book of 1086 Sandal is recorded as a '''' (a village where barley was grown) in Wachefeld (Wakefield) where there was a church with a priest. The church was on the site of the present church of St Helen.William de Warenne, 2nd Earl of Surrey (1081–1138) was granted the Sandal estates in 1107 and began the building of Sandal Castle which became the baronial seat of the lords of the manor of Wakefield.In 1460, during the Wars of the Roses, the Duke of York was killed on 30 December in the Battle of Wakefield between Sandal Castle and St Helens Church.