Altofts, a pleasant village and township with a station on the North Eastern railway, was formed into an ecclesiastical parish from Normanton on Dec. 31st, 1878, one mile west from Normanton station, in the parish of Normanton, on the south of the river Calder, 4 miles north-east from Wakefield and 1 ½ from the parish church. The church of St. Mary Magdalene is a building in the Gothic style of the fourteenth century, consisting of chancel and clerestoried nave with aisles, an organ chamber on north side, and choir and clergy vestries on the south beneath which clergy vestry is a fire-proof heating chamber; the principal entrance is from a porch on the north side, there is also another entrance of the south as well as a separate one for the clergy; the have is divided into six bays by an arcading resting upon four clustered stone shafts, with moulded and carved caps and, moulded bases; the arched entrances from the vestry and organ chamber into chancel are carried on semi-octagonal shafts with moulded and carved caps and moulded bases: the windows throughout are of two lights, the heads being filled in with chamfered, sunk, cusped and pierced tracery; the floors of the porches, passages, aisles and chancel are tiled, boarded flooring being substituted under the seating: the roofs are open timbered with framed ratters, and principals having curved braces resting upon corbels; the chancel roof is boarded on the under side of the rafters, and divided by ribbing into panels, with a cornice running round: the seating is of pitch pine with solid bench ends, the backs being framed and panelled and the fronts framed with pierced tracery in the upper panels; the chancel seats are similar, but more elaborate, the bench ends terminating in carved poppy heads: the screens separating the organ chamber and choir vestry from chancel and aisles are of pitch pine, with chamfered cusped tracery, and moulded and notched cornice, the lower parts being panelled: the roofs are covered with slates and ridged with red earthenware: the church is built of freestone, from the quarries of Mr. B. W. Higgins, who has executed the whole of the stone and brick work: internally, the walls are plastered and tinted; above the chancel rises a bell, gable, but provision is made at the west end of the church for the erection of a tower at some future time: the pulpit and font are of Caen stone, and the reredos, elaborately worked in the same material, extends across the east; wall and returns along the walla of the sanctuary on the north and south sides, the centre compartments immediately over the altar being filled with a representation of the Crucifixion, with on either side the figures of the Blessed Virgin and St. John, the whole being beautifully executed in mosaics by Salvator, from the famous picture by Perugino: the church is well heated and lighted: the site is enclosed by a stone wall with gate piers and entrance gates; Messrs. Adams and Kelly, of Leeds, were the architects; the cost of the building, not including the reredos and other church fittings, being between £6,000 and £7,000, the whole of which has been defrayed by the lady of the manor, the Hon Mrs. Meynell Ingram: an organ of excellent quality, at a cost of £330, furnished by parishioners, has been placed in the church. The register dates from the 31st. October, 1878. The living is a vicarage, yearly value £150, increased by an annual amount given by the Hon. Mrs. Meynull Ingram and by a grant from the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, in the gift of the Hon. Mrs. Meynell Ingram and held by the Rev. Charles Henry Neild. The Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists have chapels here. A cemetery, of three acres, has been formed, and two mortuary chapels of plain brick with stone facings, have been erected. Here are the extensive West Riding and Silkstone Collieries, worked by Messrs. Pope and Pearson Limited, also three maltings, Lord Conyers is lord of the manor. Sir Charles E. Dodsworth bart, and the Hon. Mrs, Meynell Ingram are chief landowners. The area is 1,837 acres; rateable value, £31,794; and the population, in 1861 was 1,210; (1871), 2,666.

Schools: -

National, erected in 1868 at the expense of the late H. C., Meynell Ingram, of Temple Newsam, Edwin Sidebottom, master; Mrs. Martha Sidebottom, mistress; Miss M.A. Simpson, infants’ mistress.

Colliery school, erected by the colliery proprietors for the children of their workmen, has 250 in attendance; Albert George Mabin, master; Miss Ellen Sowerbutts, mistress.