century watercolour shows a great hall with a minstrels gallery and grand staircase, decorated and embossed ceiling with a full-length oriel window. Young Richard Plantagenet, Richard of York, lived here from the ages of four to twelve, with Waterton's family until 1423 when national events changed things. Robert Waterton was the custodian of Richard II whilst constable of Pontefract Castle from 1399 and later gaoler of James I of Scotland. He was esquire to Henry Bolingbroke, the future Henry IV. The seat at Methley Hall was conferred in 1410 to Robert's brother John Waterton. The Hall, which featured in a 1907 edition of Country Life, was demolished in 1964, although the Mexborough Estate are still significant landowners in the district. Queen Mary (Mary of Teck), consort of H. M. King George V, visited the village in 1935 and stayed at the Hall as a guest of the Earl. Titus Salt leased Methley Hall from the Earl of Mexborough between 1856 and 1865 according to Salt's biographer Balgarnie. Church The parish church Saint Oswald's is a 12th century Grade I listed building which had a spire from the mid-18th century to 1937. The spire became unsafe and was dismantled. The Castleford-born artist Henry Moore was a frequent visitor to the church. Nikolaus Pevsner documented the church and Methley Hall as part of his Buildings of England series in the late 1950s. Alan Bennett visited the church in December 1998 as mentioned in his collection of writings Untold Stories (2005), a visit which was filmed as part of a special The South Bank Show charting the writer's early life. "Fatty Cake" School House The Old Pinder Green school house is a Grade II listed building dating from 1637 at the junction of Watergate and the main Leeds to Pontefract Road. The school closed in 1881 and became a private residence, now known as the Fatty Cake School House. Railway Methley was once served by three railway stations: Methley North (closed 1957); Methley Junction (closed 1943); and Methley South (closed 1960). The original railway line through the village was built by the North Midland Railway in 1840 as part of the Derby to Leeds main line. This route now forms part of the Hallam (Leeds – Sheffield) and Pontefract Lines. The proposed route of the Birmingham to Leeds HS2 rail line would have passed to the west of the village between Scholey Hill,