From monastic medicine to Charlie Chaplin’s boot, discover how local ingenuity turned two foreign roots – liquorice and forced rhubarb – into icons of West Yorkshire identity. When people think of West Yorkshire’s past, coal mines, shoddy mills and engineering often come to mind first. But for generations, two much less obvious industries helped put the region on the map: liquorice and rhubarb. One became the famous Pontefract Cake, known across Britain and beyond. The other was grown in dark sheds by candlelight and earned West Yorkshire a worldwide reputation for producing the finest forced rhubarb. Together, they tell a fascinating story of local ingenuity, industrial change and agricultural tradition.…