History appeal on ex- college

THE beautiful gardens of Upper Denby will be open for all to visit this Saturday.

This summer villagers are hosting their first-ever open gardens event with 15 residents preparing to showcase their horticultural skills.

Denby First School is also holding its annual summer fair on the same day from 11am until 1.30pm with pupils eager to demonstrate that they too have green fingers. The children have been tending a vegetable plot since spring.

Garden games, a children’s quiz, ‘Hunt the Hedgehog’, Hobbit house, gin and prosecco bar, tea and cakes, and a plant sale on the village green will all be on offer. As well as vegetable gardens and herbaceous borders, some gardens have livestock, so visitors can mingle with chickens and saddleback pigs.

Organiser Holly Hampshire said: “The whole village will come alive and visitors will really be able to see us at our best. All of the gardens taking part have something unique and special about them, so it’s worth coming to take a look.”

Tickets, giving access to all the gardens, are £4 in advance from The George Inn and The Dunkirk, or £5 on the day. Under 12s go free. Proceeds are going to the St John’s Church Reconfiguration Project and Denby Village Conservation Group.

There’s free off-road parking in Upper Denby at the end of Bank Lane, where tickets can be bought on the day. 33,000sq ft building was designed by Pembrokeshire-born architect James Piggott Pritchett. With its distinctive castle battlement-style parapet, it was originally a boy’s grammar school before becoming Huddersfield College in 1909. It later became part of Huddersfield Technical College in 1975 and most recently housed Kirklees College’s performing arts department.

The £1.2m development and makeover is due to start shortly with the first apartments being released for rental later in the year.

Award winning San Pedro Properties, based in Halifax, was established in 1991,

It manages and number of re-developed historical buildings across West Yorkshire. They specialise in installing the latest green and renewable technologies whilst retaining aesthetic and historically significant features.