| South Kirkby | |
|---|---|
 All Saints Church, South Kirkby | |
  South Kirkby Location withinWest Yorkshire | |
| OS grid reference | SE454107 |
| Civil parish | |
| Metropolitan borough | |
| Metropolitan county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | PONTEFRACT |
| Postcode district | WF9 |
| Dialling code | 01977 |
| Police | West Yorkshire |
| Fire | West Yorkshire |
| Ambulance | Yorkshire |
| UK Parliament | |
| 53°35′31″N1°19′19″W / 53.592°N 1.322°W /53.592; -1.322 | |
South Kirkby is a town in theCity of Wakefield inWest Yorkshire,England which is governed locally by South Kirkby and Moorthorpe Town Council. The town forms half of the civil parish ofSouth Kirkby and Moorthorpe. The parish has a population of 10,979.[1]
The town retains its own town council and is represented on the district council by Wilf Benson (Independent), Michelle Collins (Labour Party) and Steve Tulley (Labour Party).
The South Kirkby and Moorthorpe Town Council motto is 'Friendship, Unity & Progress', and the two settlements have been twinned withSprockhövel in theRuhr Valley ofGermany since 1981. The establishment of 'Sprockhövel International Friendship Circle' led to the same named organisation in South Kirkby & Moorthorpe. Since that time theSprockhövel IFK and theSouth Kirkby & Moorthorpe IFC have organised an annual exchange visit.
The town was first mentioned 1086 in theDomesday Book, and South Kirkby retains the site of the original Saxon settlement (Grid ref: SE434104). The foundations and part of the walls of 'All Saints Church' in South Kirkby are from the period. For many centuries, they were both simply farming villages until the start of theIndustrial Revolution. Hague Hall was located in South Kirkby before it was demolished in 1910 as a result of mining subsidence.[2] In 1881, with the foundation of theSouth Kirkby Colliery coal mine, an increase in population caused the villages to be extended until at its largest the two settlements housed almost all of the 3,000 workers employed in the mine. In 1984, theminers' strike included the colliery's workforce but in vain. During the miner’s strike local man David Gareth Jones was killed whilst on picket at Ollerton Colliery.[3] In 1988,South Kirkby Colliery along with many of the other coal mines in the immediate area closed and later cleared for redevelopment. These includedSouth Kirkby-FerrymoorRiddings Drift,Frickley Colliery (Carlton Main),Kinsley Drift (formerly Hemsworth Colliery), andGrimethorpe Colliery.
The town is home toSouth Kirkby Colliery football club, who have competed in theFA Cup many times in their history.[4] Another early football club of note in the town wereSouth Kirkby Wednesday, who were early rivals of South Kirkby Colliery and nearbyFrickley Colliery.
South Kirkby is served by two railway stations with a distance of one mile (1.6 km) between them.Moorthorpe railway station is on line betweenLeeds andSheffield with services being an hour on weekdays and Saturdays with a two-hourly service on Sundays.South Elmsall railway station is on the line betweenDoncaster and Leeds with also an hourly service on weekdays and Saturdays with Sunday being every two-hourly. Both stations are served byNorthern. The town was also served at one point byHemsworth and South Kirkby railway station on theHull and Barnsley Railway but this closed in the 1930s.
Wayne Benn grew up in the town and played professional football forBradford City.
