Situated in Mickletown and partly Woodrow, the Manor house in Mickletown was the three gabled property fronting on to Main Street. Manor House Since being demolished in the 1960’s (The 60’s have got a lot to answer for). The Mansion should certainly have been listed and would in later times have attracted restoration. The earliest record of the Manor is in a charter at the time of Richard II (1389-1399) recording the sale of the Manor by Richard Redman to Thomas Knipe and Robt. Payford. Ownership of this sub Manor within a Manor passed on to William Bull, Richard de Skelton, John Vescy, John de Lee and finally to Thos de Towton who was Master of the Hospitall of Pontefract (recorded as being a Priory of the Cluniac Order). Hence the Manor came to Robt. Waterton as previously recorded and on to his illegitimate son Thomas. In 1410 Thos de Towton along with others was granted licence to crenellate their Manor House.
An earlier identification of this being the Mansion House in Mickletown has not been proved and it is possible it could describe the Manor House in Methley Wood. Alternatively the book ‘Wakefield Its History and People’ by JW Walker first produced in 1934 describes Woodhall as being part of the Manor of Stanley. It became Hatfeild Hall which is now the Normanton Golf Club. JW Walker describes the transactions of ownership from Towton onwards through Redman, Waterton and into the possession of the Lupset branch of the Savile family. One successor married into the Hatfeild family and the property was renamed Hatfeild Hall. Lineage and ownership of Woodhall is clear but which Hall was it? Further confirmation of Woodhall being of the village of Stanley is written by Oswald Barron in the publication ‘Country Homes’ 1907. He also describes the gothicsed extensions to Methley Hall initiated by the third Earl in 1830 and designed by the architect Anthony Salvin ‘At least we may say that he left it an imposing mass of masonry’.