Last week we looked at Denby. This week it's Denby Dale itself in the second part of our focus on the "deep south" of the Huddersfield area.

DENBY DALE, otherwise known as the Pie Village, can probably compete with Skelmanthorpe for the title of the area's ``most populous community".

This would certainly have shocked the earliest residents of Denby Dale, or Denby Dike as it was then known.

The growth of Denby Dale, like that of many other villages in Huddersfield and the West Riding of Yorkshire, is inseparable from the mechanisation of the textile industry and the changes in transport and communication brought by the Industrial Revolution.

Before this, Denby Dale's population was sparse and the area was home only to a small number of farmsteads scattered well above the River Dearne.

It is difficult to pinpoint precisely when people first settled in Denby Dale. Unlike its neighbour Denby, Denby Dale is not recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086.

It is probable that there was no settlement at this time. The ground would have been marshy, prone to flooding and, therefore, unsuitable for grazing cattle.

However, we do know that by the mid to late 18th century there was a corn mill in the village, along with fulling and scribbling mills.

These were all near the Dearne to make use of the plentiful water.

We know the village was inhabited by 1788/89, when the first Denby Dale Pie was baked. We cannot be precise about the date of the first Denby Dale pie - always supposing it was the first.

Records say it was baked in 1788, but this is at odds with the accepted reason for the baking, namely the recovery in 1789 of George III from one of his many bouts of mental illness.

The industry that would transform Denby Dale from a sparsely populated area to a thriving, industrious village had arrived by the time of the first pie.

By 1799 one John Wood, ``a clothier of Denby Dykeside', is recorded as being the owner of a ``dwelling house, shop, dyehouse and outbuildings".

These would eventually become part of the large complex which is now Z Hinchliffe & Sons.

Despite the arrival of the textile industry, Denby Dale remained a small and comparatively isolated place and was still known as Denby Dike.

It was only as a result of the building of two turnpike roads - the Barnsley and Shepley Lane turnpike in 1825 and the Wakefield to Denby Dale turnpike road a year later - and the arrival of the railway that Denby Dike began changing to the Denby Dale we know today.

These improvements in transport and communications not only attracted industry, particularly the mills. Z Hinchliffe & Sons, Kenyon & Sons and Brownhill & Scatchard were all established between 1850 and 1868.

Z Hinchliffe & Sons is the only one left, but it provided the village with its landmark, Denby Dale Viaduct.

It still looms over the village. The present one is made of stone, replacing a wooden one in 1877.

And, of course, the pie tradition continues. The most recent effort, the 10th pie, was baked in 2000 for the Millennium.

I can confirm it was delicious- if a little heavy on the gravy!

FACT FILE:

IN 1850 John Hinchliffe, Zachariah's father, bought Hartcliffe Mills in Denby Dale.

Apparently, the Hinchliffes chose Denby Dale over Holmfirth (where many other mills were being built) because they saw the potential that the railway would bring to the village.

Indeed, this opened shortly after Hartcliffe Mills was acquired.

Perhaps this was a wise move in light of the damage caused to Holmfirth by the 1852 flood.

After John Hinchliffe's death in 1870, Zachariah took over the business and changed the name to the one we know today.

He also built Strathdearne, the family home, above the mill - no doubt so he could keep an eye on things!

Z Hinchliffe and Sons has seen many changes, but as one writer put it the company has ``stood the test of time".

It is regarded as one of the Top 65 of UK yarn suppliers.

Denby Dale Cricket Club - which Zachariah's third son, Thomas Albert, played a large part in founding - has also weathered the years well.

The area's first seat of learning

DENBY Dale School on Wakefield Road opened on July 8, 1874.

Records show that two months later 257 scholars had been admitted.

This might have been a problem for the school if all 257 scholars attended regularly.

But before school attendance becoming compulsory in 1881 - and for a good while afterwards - many children were kept off school so they could work.

It was usual for between 60 and 100 out of the 257 pupils registered at the school to turn up on a given day.

Attendance was always low during harvesting and potato picking.

Those attending Denby Dale School in the 19th century would have been taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, scripture, singing and needlework (girls only).

Records show that the school suffered from heating problems and flooding.

On October 9, 1876, flooding in the girls' yard was so bad - girls and boys then had separate yards and entrances - that to enter the school the girls had to walk on stepping-stones.

This was not the only problem. Girls at the school had to contend with their toilets - which were outside - having no doors.

During the 1960s Denby Dale's population expanded as new housing estates were built and it was agreed that a new school was needed as Denby Dale School was nearly a century old and didn't have enough room to cope with rising numbers.

Gilthwaites First School opened its doors in 1976 and has taught the children of Denby Dale ever since.

But the old school on Wakefield Road still plays a role in the lives of the area's children. It is now Denby Dale Nursery.

BY the middle of the 18th century Methodism was becoming popular, particularly in industrial areas.

There was a shortage of Anglican clergymen outside the capital and this, along with the complacency of the Church of England and the lack of churches in many areas - some people having to walk more than seven miles to reach their nearest church - opened the door to Nonconformism.

In the absence of a church, newly- built chapels became the religious centres of the rapidly expanding textile villages and these areas became strongholds for Nonconformism.

Denby Dale was no different.

By the late 18th century one Mr Wood had started Denby Dale's Methodist movement in outbuildings at the back of his home.

By 1799 the Wesleyan Chapel on Cumberworth Lane had been erected.

The Primitive Methodists, not to be outdone, had built their own chapel by 1837. It closed in 1962.

And the Wesleyan Reform Movement's Chapel on Barnsley Road was in use by 1860.

Surprisingly, for a community with Denby Dale's population, the village does not have a parish church.

But Holy Trinity Church - built as late as 1939 - offers Church of England followers a place to worship.

TIMELINE:

1772: The manorial corn mill is marked on a map of Yorkshire along with a group of houses. The mill was owned by the Lord of the Manor, in this case the Savile family. All his tenants were required to take their grain to be ground at this mill and had to pay for the facility.

1788-1789: According to records the baking of what we can only assume was the first Denby Dale pie.

1815: The second pie, celebrating the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, is baked.

1834: The entry for Denby Dale in Pigot & Co's National Commercial Directory is as follows: `Denby Dale is a hamlet, partly in the chapelry of Denby, and partly in Cumberworth chapelry, situated about midway between the two places and about four and half miles NW from Penistone. The inhabitants of the hamlet are employed in the woollen and stuff manufactures. There is a chapel for the Wesleyan Methodists. Two fairs are held here, one on Easter Monday, the other on November 5.

1846: The third Denby Dale Pie, celebrating the repeal of the Corn Laws, is baked. Building work begins on the first viaduct.

1847: January 17: there is a tremendous storm which causes great damage to the viaduct.

1850: July 1: The railway station at Denby Dale opens.

1854: Jonas Kenyon and Sons build their mill.

1868: Brownhill and Scatchard acquire Inkerman Mills.

1876: There is an outbreak of diphtheria in the village.

1877: Work on the present stone viaduct begins.

1880: May 16: The official opening of Denby Dale's second viaduct.

1884: The old wooden viaduct is dismantled.

1887: August 27: The fourth pie, celebrating Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, is baked. This pie turned out to be `gamey' and had to be buried in quick lime in Toby Wood. September 3: The fifth pie, the Resurrection Pie, is baked.

1896: August 1: The sixth pie, celebrating the 50 years since the repeal of the hated Corn Laws, is baked.

1898: A bye-law of this year banned householders from shaking their rugs or mats and emptying the contents of their chamber pots on the highway!

1908: The speed limit for traffic passing through Denby Dale is set at 8 mph.

1928: The seventh pie is baked to raise funds for Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.

1932: There is an outbreak of typhoid in the area. Schools were closed and 11 people died.

1939: Trinity Church is built.

1940: On December 12 German bombers on their way to Sheffield drop a bomb on the roadway near Dearne Terrace.

1945: There is a serious fire at Naylor Brothers pipeworks in April.

1964: The eighth pie, also known as the Darby and Joan Pie, is baked to celebrate four royal births (Prince Edward, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, Lady Helen Windsor and James Ogilvy).

1972: The Pie Hall opens on September 5.

1976: Pupils bid farewell to Denby Dale School and move to the purpose-built school on the Gilthwaites estate.

1977: The mills owned by Jonas Kenyon and Sons close.

1980: Production ceases at Springfield Mill. This mill has since been converted into shops.

1988: The ninth pie, to commemorate the bicentenary of the first pie, is baked.

2000: The 10th pie, to celebrate the Millennium, is baked and served to an estimated crowd of 25,000.

2005: Denby Dale Festival takes place in August, headlined by Liberty X and the New Drifters.