Village of the week: Silk, sabotage and a right Royal reason to make a pie makes for a slice of West Yorkshire history

As a hamlet, which it was in the early days, it can be said that Denby Dyke, as it was known and recorded then, was quite unremarkable.

It was sparsely populated and rural with a small textile mill. Within a quarter of a century that industry was beginning to boom as more factories and mills were built and the construction of railways was well underway.

Denby Dale became almost a server of that industry and provided materials, coal and transport.

Springfield Mill was part of this movement when at the turn of the century Brownhills & Scatchard moved there from Inkerman Mills where they had been from 1868.

Brownhills & Scatchard occupied the mill for many years specialising in the making of fine silks and chiffon for gowns and wedding dresses.

During the war it also produced parachutes but it also supplied silk for the Queen Mother’s wedding dress for her marriage to the future George VI in 1923.

However, the interest in Royal matters actually started some 135 years before this.

Back in 1788, Denby Dale came together to enjoy a holiday and a communal feast in celebration of the recovery of King George III from his terrible mental affliction.

In his honour a large game pie was baked in an oven at the White Hart Inn, cut up and served to the villagers.

And so, the love of pie has stayed within the village ever since. Even to this day.

The Denby Dale Pie Hall is so called after the long-standing village tradition and The Denby Dale Pie Company supplies pies to major supermarkets.

So, back to the Napoleonic wars.

The Duke of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815 brought to an end fears of a French invasion.

Like the rest of the nation, Denby Dale wanted to celebrate and did so by making a large pie that as before was cut up and served to locals in a village feast.

It contained two sheep and twenty fowls, and a massive pastry crust made from half a peck of flour (depending on recipes and local takes, this could have been around seven pounds of flour).

It turns out the celebrations would soon be overcome by fears amongst farmers that a sudden import of foreign corn would flood the market, bringing down the price, and so ruin them.

The then government passed the Corn Laws in 1815, preventing the import of foreign corn until British corn reached the famine price of 80 shillings a quarter. However it proved unpopular as it pushed up the price of bread which was a staple diet for the poorer families.

When the Corn Laws were repealed in 1846, it was the scene of celebration so Denby Dale baked another pie.

However, a shocking turn of events would mean this pie left a bit of an after taste.

The Pie Hall provides this account of what happened on that strange day in July of that year.

It reads: “The pie was baked in the village in a grand oven at Cuckstool Farmhouse. The immense pie was brought into the field on a farmer’s wagon and lifted onto the temporary stage. Some speeches were made, and as the crowd below increased so did the people on the stage until the stage gave way and came down, pie and all, with a crash.

“A crowd of 15,000 people surged forward, a scramble ensued and amid a wild state of turmoil and riot the stage was utterly demolished and the pie flung to the winds.

“There was no formal cutting up of the pie since Mr Joseph Peace, who was to have had that honour, is reported to have fallen into the pie when the stage collapsed.

“The celebration came to a sudden end. Rumours were rife of sabotage and many suspects were accused, over the years the story of these disastrous proceedings passed into local legend.”

More than 40 years would pass before the village braved another baking of public pie and that didn’t end well either.

It was for the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria’s reign and featured 1581lb of beef, 180lb mutton, 163lb of veal, 180lb of lamb, 250lb worth of lean pork, 64 rabbits, three hares, 42 fowls, 40 pigeons, 12 grouse, 21 ducks, four plovers, a turkey, five geese, two wild ducks, 108 small birds and 40 stone of potatoes.

Once all the ingredients were in, the pie weighed nearly one and a half tonnes.

However, when the pie was cut, it had gone bad and let off an incredible stench that even hounds of the Penistone and Thurlstone Hunt came to investigate from five miles away.

A few weeks later a second attempt to mark the Queen’s Jubilee with another village pie proved to be a huge success.

Since then there have been village pies for 50th anniversary of the repeal of the Corn Laws and the end of the First World War.

In 1963 there were fears that the tradition may die off so a public meeting was held with huge support for making another village pie. Initially it was to raise funds for a village community hall but when it became known four Royal babies were expected to be born in 1964, this became the official excuse for a pie.

A Bicentenary Pie was held on September 3 1988 to celebrate 200 years since the first pie. The Guinness World Records recognised it as the largest meat and potato pie in the world. It was served by 170 people and sold for £1 a slice, it took two days and 90,000 people to eat it.