The Village Stocks
Upper Denby's village stocks have become a particular curiosity because of their present location. Originally situated on a mound near no.121 Denby Lane, they were first moved to serve as gateposts for the Wesleyan chapel, then in 2005 they were relocated again to a spot near the present village green which has since been built on. So they now stand in the garden of a modern house on the corner of Coal Pit Lane - most curious!
Witchcraft
Upper Denby witnessed an accusation of witchcraft in 1674 reminiscent of the Salem witch trials when 16 year old Ann Moor from Clayton accused mother and daughter Susan Hinchcliffe and Ann Shillitoe, also implicating Susan's husband, Joseph, and quoting many cases in which they had spited or cast spells on various neighbours. The two women were taken to Barnsley gaol to await trial before Darcy Wentworth Esq. at Woolley. Meanwhile, however, over 50 people from the village including the vicar, most of whom had known the women for at least 10 years and some as long as 20 years, signed a petition to the West Riding Magistrates testifying to their good character and behaviour which had never given cause for suspicion. Nevertheless the women were sent for trial at York Assizes and Joseph was bound over to appear too. This must have caused him great distress as he committed suicide on 4th February 1675. His wife, Susan, also is said to have died praying for her accusers on her deathbed. The case then turned on its head with the accuser, Ann Moor, being herself accused of witchcraft – she had been seen by witness Thomas Haigh of Lower Denby on several occasions vomiting bent wire and crooked pins! There is no surviving documentation of a conclusion to the case except that the record of the proposed trial at York was later seen to have been torn in two, which may indicate that the case had been thrown out.
Public Houses
The Star
The oldest of Upper Denby's three public houses but also the first to close in the early 1900s. It was situated behind and adjacent to “The George”. Amos Barraclough was the landlord in 1822 and Joshua Swainson when it closed and in between Aaron Hanwell, a probable relative of John Hanwell, landlord of “The New Inn”, was in charge between the 1860s and 1890s. Like the other two “The Star” became a Seth Senior Brewery tied house, but it couldn't compete with its near rival “The George” and finally closed when the government began offering compensation to publicans who lost their licenses. Mr. Swainson moved to be landlord of “The Dunkirk Inn” at Lower Denby and “The Star” was converted into a private residence.
The New Inn
This is the building now known as “The Old Tavern”. It was originally a private house, then an inn before becoming a private house once again. It was the home of
doctor, surgeon and apothecary George Turton in 1808 but he fell into debt and had to hand the property over to his creditors, to do as they wished with, to pay off his debts. They also confiscated the contents and just about everything that George and his wife Sarah owned except the clothes on their backs. After some years had elapsed, they sold it on to James Seddon, a Denby dyer, in 1825 along with an adjoining parcel of land that the Turtons had once owned. Seddon built a cottage on the land but it is unclear if the Turton house was replaced by it. Seddon mortgaged the land to Joshua Brooke, yeoman and farmer, of High Flatts but failed to keep up the payments and by 1832 had fled to live in Manchester, working as a chimney sweep, leaving the property in the hands of solicitor William Stephenson who was acting for all his creditors. They decided to put the house and land up for auction and Joshua Brooke was the highest bidder. Soon afterwards the building became “The New Inn” with John Brooke as landlord in 1838. Seth Senior and Sons, the Shepley brewers, became the tenants around this time and they appointed a series of landlords to actually run the place. In the 1850s this was John Hanwell and later, into the 1890s, his wife Mary Hanwell. By 1884 Tamar Green, wife of Amos Green, was the owner and two years later it passed to a relative, another woman, Elizabeth Moulton of Penistone. She later lived in London and finally Wakefield where she died in 1901 leaving everything to sole heir Thomas Shaughnessey. The Senior family had continued as tenants throughout. But Shaughnessey accumulated debts too and eventually asked the Seniors if they would like to buy the inn, which they did in 1904. And so it remained until the Seth Senior company was itself bought out in 1946 by Hammonds Breweries of Lockwood who were later taken over by Bass Charringtons. The New Inn closed as a public house in 1963 and reverted once again to a private residence. Hammonds had decided to close one of their two remaining pubs in the village and chose to retain and modernise “The George”, which had its own car park, at the expense of “The New Inn”.
The George
The George began trading as a public house around 1857 and was operated by the Norton family group until 1877 and soon afterwards passed into the hands of Seth Senior's sons James and Reuben. At this time, besides the inn itself there was a
barn, carriage and cart houses, and a garden. Most interestingly, part of the building up until this time had been used as a sanatorium, probably along similar lines to the one later run in Mill Bank House in nearby High Flatts. That one, from 1886 into the early 20th Century, was used to rehabilitate inebriate working and middle class women, with the support of the Yorkshire Women's Christian Temperance Union.
A succession of landlords named Taylor ran “The George” from 1857 until the early 1900s and Frank and Mabel Widdowson were there from 1930 until 1958. “The George” won out over “The New Inn” in 1963 when Hammonds, who had taken over Seth Senior's Brewery Company, chose to improve and modernise it, closing “The New Inn”, which they also owned, at the same time. The barn and cart house were demolished and the car park extended. The local hunt, the Rockwood Harriers, meet on horseback outside the pub, on Boxing Day in particular. Industrialist Walter Norton of Rockwood House, Denby Dale, founded and for a long time financed the Harriers in 1868.
The Church
Upper Denby was originally in the parish of Penistone and inhabitants had to travel there for Sunday services but also for services related to baptisms, marriages and funerals. Travel became particularly difficult during the winter months and involved crossing wild moorland and at least one raging river on foot or by cart. Nevertheless the dutiful villagers determined to get there whatever the weather. This led to disaster in 1626 when 13 parishioners drowned in the flooded Scout Dyke on their way to church. This led the villagers to petition Archbishop Tobias Mathew for a licence to build a chapel in Upper Denby itself. He agreed in December 1627 and it
was Godfrey Bosville, who owned land in Gunthwaite, who financed and built it. The Bosvilles were not the Lords of the Manor who would normally have done this, that was the Burdets of Lower Denby, but the two families were related to each other by marriage. Consequently the chapel was built on land nearer to Bosville than Burdet territory, the same site as the present church. This encouraged the development of Upper Denby as new residents built their homes nearer their place of worship, the chapel, which continued in use until 1844. The Bosville family appointed the vicars and appointed more puritanical ones to suit their own preference. Indeed one of them, Daniel Clarke, was appointed in March 1643 by Lord Fairfax, a prominent parliamentarian during the Civil War, to move to Kirkburton Church to succeed their rector, Gamaliel Whitaker, an ardent Royalist, who had been arrested by parliamentary troops and imprisoned that January, his wife being shot dead at the time of his arrest (see Kirkburton page).
By the 1840s the chapel at Upper Denby was in a “filthy and ruinous state” and the Bishop ordered it pulled down and money raised to build a new one. A building
committee was formed, John Ellis a builder from High Flatts appointed and a new church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, built and completed in 1845 at a cost of £1170. Then in 1853 Denby became a separate parish with curate Job Johnson promoted to vicar. But it wasn't until 1873 that a Vicarage was built under his direction, at a cost of £1800.
Major alterations were made to the church in 1900 -1901 and its appearance inside
transformed. The vicar at that time, Romeo Edwin Taglis, wanted to create a copy of a church in Italy he had admired. The newly transformed church was re-opened and consecrated in June 1901 and it was redecorated in 1944. The pulpit, which was originally in Cawthorne church, has paintings by pre- Raphaelite artist Roddam Spencer-Stanhope.
The Wesleyan Reform Chapel
This, a side shoot of the Denby Dale Wesleyan Reform or Zion Chapel on Barnsley Road was built in 1911 near the present village green but was short-lived, closing in 1930 and being converted into a private house by village undertaker Joe Willie Heath.
The Older properties
Upper Denby has several older properties of historical interest
Rock House
This lovely detached house on Bank Lane is one of the oldest in the village. Its door lintel is inscribed IG 1684 IL.
Contemporary with Rock House Manor Farm and its cottage, now used as a holiday let, also on Bank Lane. The lintel at the farm has the wording Joseph Mosley 1694 whilst the cottage is dated 1677.
Cottages on Coal Pit Lane
These now divided cottages were thought o have been a single property at one time known as Marshall House and owned by John and Elizabeth Outram, hence the inscription O J E 1770 over the door. John died only four years later and is buried in St. John's churchyard, his gravestone testifying that he was a physician.
The School
Denby Church of England First School was built in 1864 on land donated by Thomas Kaye of Bradford, and cost £750. It was a National School and intended to serve all the local villages such as Ingbirchworth, Lower Denby and High Flatts. Its establishment probably led to demise of the old school at Lower Denby which had been set up in 1769 in a cottage there after Francis Burdet of Denby Hall left an endowment in his will of 1731 for its establishment. A school master and mistress were appointed to teach the children whose ages in the 1870s ranged between 4 and teenage. The school had around 30 pupils at this time and provided a basic education supplemented by religious studies. Like all village schools at this time attendance was affected by illnesses and by parents keeping children away to help with farm work at key times such as sowing or harvesting or to help with weaving, another key occupation in Upper Denby. Over time an adjoining schoolhouse was built for the head teachers
and various extensions to the school itself created. By the 1980s the school was under threat of closure but survived and was extensively updated and refurbished in the 1990s.
Telephone box
The old red village telephone box has been admirably converted into a defibrillator station with the help of various residents.