THE PRINCESS Royal visited a village famous for baking giant pies yesterday.

Princess Anne took a tour around the factory at Denby Dale Pie Company in Denby Dale.

Children from Gilthwaites First School waited over an hour in the pouring rain to catch a glimpse of the 10th in line to the throne.

Locals were also at Denby Dale business park on Wakefield Road.

Brenda Morley was waiting with her friend, Delia Frankland.

The grandmother-of three said: “I’m a big royalist and I’ve got every book on the royals.

“I like Princess Anne very much. She’s a very good worker and is one of the best royals.

“I’ve not met her before but I’ve met her mother and father.

“I’d do anything to see the royals. I would have liked to have seen Princess Diana.”

Princess Anne, who turned 60 this year, was shown around the Denby Dale premises by the company’s founder, Janet Purcell.

Janet said: “She is absolutely fabulous and she was very interested in what we were doing.

“She is just like a normal person and it was like meeting an old friend – she was fantastic.

“There were pies out for her but I can’t remember if she tried one.

“It all went so fast – like your wedding day does when everything is going on at once and it is all a blur.”

The pie company was awarded ‘the best meat and potato pie in Britain’ prize by ITV’s Paul O’Grady show.

Janet said: “Princess Anne came to visit us for a variety of reasons.

“We’ve got the heritage that Denby Dale has been making pies for more than 200 years.”

Denby Dale is world-renowned for making huge record-breaking pies.

The first recorded large-scale pie making in the village was in 1788 to celebrate the recovery of King George III from a major illness.

Since then nine other pies have been baked in the village to coincide with special events and raise money for local charities.

The Victory Pie was made in 1815 to celebrate the victory of the Duke of Wellington over Napoleon Boneparte at the Battle of Waterloo.

The pie was said to contain two sheep, 20 fowls and a half a peck of flour (7lbs) for the crust.

More recently, in 2000, the village made a record-breaking pie 40ft long and weighing 10 tonnes.

A year later Janet, from Wakefield, decided to found the pie company alongside the village’s shop and bakery.

She said: “We make homemade pies as close as you can get to how you make them at home.”

The company now supplies Tesco, The Co-op and Asda and is currently working on making four new flavours of pie to sell at Waitrose.