Chapel high days; Two new books that go on sale in Honley tomorrow reveal just how much village life has been dominated by its chapels. But they also reveal a more brutal past. VAL JAVIN turns the pages.

Byline: VAL JAVIN

THE PRETTY village of Honley was once a lively spot with a passion for the kind of sports most of us would frown on today.

The village in the late 18th century was far from Christian in outlook and Sunday was a day not for God, but for sport.

Not for nothing were some of the residents called Honley Bulldogs.

Bear baiting, cock fighting, prize fights and other similar pursuits were the order of the day and crowds used to assemble, not to go to church, but to watch such events on Honley Moor.

But alongside that passion was another, with pockets of evangelism growing, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.

Take Squire Brooke, who like many in Honley had grown up in the 1800s as a frivolous lad who loved sports, dogs and horses and grew up to be a keen sportsman - though not a gambler.

He was out on Honley Moor when he was shot accidentally.

Thomas Holliday, a Primitive Methodist preacher, told him that he was seeking happiness where it might never be found and the young Edward Brooke turned to prayer. Later in life he was behind a move to create large Wesleyan premises in High Street, Honley.

It is against this background that Peter Marshall, a Scot by birth but a Honleyer these days by inclination and by way of having lived in the village for more than 20 years, has traced the growth of the village's Non-Comformist Chapels in two fascinating new books about a village which in the 18th and 19th century had not one Non-Comformist Chapel, but three.

The Honley Civic Society books combine the stories of the two Methodist Churches - the Primitive Methodist Church in Southgate and the Wesleyan Chapel in High Street - and of the Congregational Church in Moorbottom.

In the late Sixties, the two Methodist churches closed and all three congregations united in the larger premises at Moorbottom, which took the new name of Trinity Church, rightly reflecting the coming together of three bands of worshippers.

The books go on sale at tomorrow's Christmas Tree Festival and street market in Honley from the Civic Society's stall.

You can also buy a copy at Karidays newsagents in Honley. [e-mail]

CAPTION(S):

STEPPING OUT: Southgate Sunday School pupils in Honley ready to march on a Whit Walk in 1909, when chapels dominated village life; VILLAGE LIFE: Peter Marshall of Honley Civic Society with his new books (PW251108Ecivic-02); FAIR PLAY: Southgate Primitives football team on the steps of the chapel in around 1930. "Work, rest and play" centred on the chapels; THREE WISE MEN: Leading lights at High Street Chapel