In the third and last investment of 1648-49 Cromwell himself summoned the garrison, and remained a month with the Parliamentary forces, without seeing any immediate prospect of the surrender of the castle. When the Royalists had been reduced to a mere handful, Colonel Morris, their commander, agreed to terms of capitulation on March 24, 1649. The dismantling of the stately pile by order of Parliament followed as a matter of course, and now we have practically nothing but seventeenth-century prints to remind us of the embattled towers which for so many months defied Cromwell and his generals. Liquorice is still grown at Pontefract, although the industry has languished on account of Spanish rivalry, and the town still produces those curious little discs of soft liquorice, approximating to the size of a shilling, known as ‘Pontefract cakes.’ To the west of Pontefract, in a comparatively small space, and connected with a wonderful network of railways, lie Wakefield, Leeds, Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, and a dozen smaller centres of manufacture, while further south are Barnsley and Sheffield. It seems unfair that a district contributing so much to England’s wealth should be repaid by gloomy skies and depressing landscapes. Wakefield has a fine Perpendicular church with a tall crocketed spire, which became a cathedral in 1888, when the new diocese was formed. The chantry on the bridge over the Calder is entirely a modern reconstruction. It is, however, so richly carved, and so deceptive in its appearance of age, through the weathering of the Caen stone employed, that even Ruskin was under some misapprehension in regard to its age. There is nothing in the town to connect it with Goldsmith’s ‘Vicar of Wakefield,’ and it is not known if he ever visited the place. The great black city of Leeds has a nucleus consisting of several fine streets possessing numbers of modern buildings, making an imposing effect worthy of the fifth English city and the commercial capital of Yorkshire. New public buildings, banks, shops, or whatever they may be, however white they commence their existence, in a very short time are toned down to the uniform sable tones of the whole city. Clock-faces stand out with painful whiteness against the sooty stonework of towers and gables, and the only colour to be seen is restricted to the shop-windows. Architects should remember the atmosphere of Leeds, and use coloured glazed bricks and porcelain extensively, so that whole buildings could every year be washed down from the roofs to the ground, and cheer the citizens of the great town with their cleanliness and colour. In City Square, just outside the stations of the Midland, Great Northern, and other [Illustration: KIRKSTALL ABBEY, LEEDS