An account from 1322 records what was being stored in the larder at Sandal Castle. This includes carcasses of beef, sides of bacon, casks of herrings and measures of salt.
Googling for ‘measure of salt’, I found a Market Scene by an van Horst, now in the Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest, with a tub of salt which I thought looked just right for how I imagined the larder at Sandal, even though it was painted two centuries after the inspection of the castle.
A Saint in Pontefract
Robin Hood’s Wakefield’.
As I discovered when I researched my booklet of Walk in Robin Hood’s Yorkshire, 1322 was a momentous year for Sandal. On Monday, 21st March, the Lord of the Manor of Wakefield, Thomas of Lancaster, was sentenced to death by beheading after a trial for treason at Pontefract Castle at which the previous Lord of the Manor, John Earl de Warenne, was one of those who sat in judgement. John got his castle back – presumably along with the casks of herrings, sides of beef and legs of bacon in the inventory.
But a year later, after miracles there, the tomb of Thomas of Lancaster in Pontefract’s Priory Church was attracting huge crowds, and Archbishop Melton of York was concerned that people had been killed in demonstrations there.