Denby Dale: Village’s fascinating history from world famous pie feats to a wobbly viaduct and a ducking stool for nagging wives

The area has become renowned for its huge commemorative pies over the past 200 years.

Villagers started this tradition in 1788 to celebrate King George III's recovery from mental illnesses.

Denby Dale has become famous for its pie making heritage, with the 2000 Millennium Pie being the most recent.

There’s also been some infamous pies too. In 1846, a pie which had been baked to mark the repeal of the ‘Corn Laws’ collapsed on the person doing the official ‘cutting open’ of the pie. As the story goes, the person was trapped inside the crust.

A few years later, another shaky construction was built, but this was a much more dangerous feat - it was the Denby Dale Railway Viaduct, which originally opened in 1850 as a timber trestle bridge. It was known for catching fire, not to mention its unstable foundations.

Fortunately the wooden structure was eventually replaced in 1884 by the current 21-arch rock-faced stone viaduct in 1880 which has been Grade 11 listed by Historic England since 1985.

It is the pie history that villagers wanted to celebrate however by building their own village hall, the Denby Dale Pie Hall in 1972.

The bar and function room pays homage to the village’s weird and wonderful history, including the ‘putrid pie’ which was baked in 1887.

Denby Dale Pies who are now a brand selling pies to supermarkets nationwide said: “The village had grand plans of making the greatest pie that ever lived.

“That was until they left it in the sun all day to go bad and had to bury it in a nearby field.”

This disastrous pie had been baked to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

Some stories suggest that the pie smelt putrid, after being filled with an unusual range of game, and then left out in the sun. Allegedly the main pie maker had to make a run for it.

A resurrection pie was made a week later.

Denby Dale Pies explained: “Swallowing its pride after the fiasco the week before, Denby Dale baked the Resurrection Pie on 3rd September 1887. And this time, the village ladies took charge.

“It was a huge success, with over 2,000 happy guests full to busting with pie.”

Villagers are rightly proud of their pie history, even officially naming the Pie Hall bar 1877, the date of the first pie.

The Pie Hall also features as an attraction on a 5-mile walk of Denby Dale because this was the location of the 2000 Millennium Pie which contained 2.5 tons of beef and potatoes, 3.5 tons of pastry and 36 gallons of beer in a 40ft-long dish.

The trail guides visitors throughout the stunning landscape as well as sharing unique facts about the area.

One notable place is Cuckstool Farm where the 1846 pie was baked. It also has a cruel history because a cuckstool was an ancient form of summary punishment in the form of a “ducking-stool”. The cuckstool was often used as a punishment for a nagging wife or outspoken woman.

While Denby Dale, formerly Denby Dike, is renowned for its pie heritage, the area was largely shaped by the mills as well as the railway industry.

One of the well-known mills Springfield Mill, which is now a visitor centre, specialised in the making of fine silks and chiffon for gowns and wedding dresses.

Springfield Mill visitor centre writes: “In fact the company produced a bolt of silk for the Queen Mother’s wedding dress for her marriage to the future George VI in 1923.

​”During the war years the company also produced parachutes.​”

One of the pie tins had also been used for the war dish effort. The large pie dish used for the 1887 and 1896 Denby Dale pies was donated to the British war effort in 1940 to be melted down for munitions.

Villagers said that the 1988 Denby Dale Pie, known as the Bicentenary Pie, was the ninth and final pie to be baked to celebrate the village’s 200 year-old tradition.

This pie was certified by the Guinness Book of Records as the world's largest meat and potato pie with 90,000 people served a slice over two days.

Contrary to the ‘final pie’ statement in 2000 a tenth pie, the Millennium Pie, was made in the village.

While a smaller pie was produced in 2012 to celebrate the Diamond Jubilee, villagers have said that the Millennium Pie is the last ‘mammoth pie’ to be made in the village.

Although with Denby Dale, The Pie Village’s, weird and wonderful history it’s hard to believe that a group of pie-eyed villagers won’t plot to create another celebratory pie in the future while supping a beer in the 1788 bar.