Denny, a town and a parish of SE Stirlingshire. The town stands on the right bank of the Carron, opposite Dunipace, with which it is connected by a bridge; by road it is 5½ miles WNW of Falkirk, 5½ NNE of Cumbernauld, and 7¼ S by E of Stirling, whilst, as terminus of a branch of the Scottish Central section of the Caledonian, opened in 1859, it is 3¾ miles WNW of Larbert Junction, 32¼ WNW of Edinburgh, and 25¼ NE of Glasgow. Only a small village down to the close of last century, it is almost entirely modern, and has a post office, with money order, savings' bank, insurance, and telegraph departments, branches of the Bank of Scotland and Clydesdale Bank, 13 insurance agencies, 3 hotels, a gas company, a people's hall, library, and reading-room, an Oddfellows' hall, and fairs on the Wednesdays before 12 May and after 11 November. Large public schools were built in 1875 at a cost of £5000; and places of worship are the parish church (1813; 768 sittings) with a turreted steeple 75 feet high, a Free church (1843), a U.P. church (1796; reconstructed 1881), and the Roman Catholic church of St Patrick (1861). In 1876 Denny and Dunipace were formed into a police burgh, which, governed by 9 commissioners, had a municipal constituency of 580 in 1882. Pop. of Denny alone (1841) 1881, (1851) 2446, (1861) 2428, (1871) 2433, (1881) 2823; of police burgh (1876) 3595, (1881) 4081.
Besides part of Bonnybridge, 21/8 miles to the SSE, the parish contains also the villages of Denny-Loanhead, Parkfoot, Longcroft, and Haggs, which extend continuously along the Glasgow highroad, Denny-Loanhead being 1¾ mile S, and Haggs 31/8 miles SSW, of Denny town. It is bounded NW by St Ninians, NE and E by Dunipace, SE by Falkirk, SW by Cumbernauld in Dumbartonshire (detached) and Kilsyth, and W by Kilsyth. From E to W its utmost length is 57/8 miles; its width, from N to S, varies between 5½ furlongs and 3¼ miles; and its area is 8356½ acres, of which 48 are water. The Carron winds 7½ miles east-north-eastward and east-south-eastward on or close to all the boundary with St Ninians and Dunipace; Bonny Burn runs 43/8 miles east-south-eastward and east-north-eastward along all the Dumbartonshire and Falkirk border; and three others of the Carron's affluents flow east-north-eastward through the interior. At the eastern extremity of the parish the surface declines along the Carron to 100 feet above sea-level, thence rising westward to 234 feet near Hillend, 400 near Banknock, 696 at conical Myot Hill, 563 near Leysbent, 460 at Cowden Hill, 965 at Tarduff Hill, and 1170 at Darrach Hill upon Denny Muir. The rocks are partly eruptive, partly carboniferous; and the soil is loamy along the Bonny and the lower reaches of the Carron, gravelly throughout the central district, and marshy or moorish over most of the uplands- Of the entire area, 5840 acres are in tillage, 789 pasture, 1499 waste, and only 181 under wood. Coal and ironstone are mined, and employment is further afforded by paper, chemical, and engine works at Denny town, by Carronbank Foundry (1860) and Denny iron-works (1870), by Bonnybridge Columbian stove works (1860), foundry (1860), and malleable iron-works (1877), and by Bankier Distillery. Banknock House is the chief mansion; and 5 proprietors hold each an annual value of £500 and upwards, 20 of between £100 and £500,37 of from £50 to £100, and 70 of from £20 to £50. In the presbytery of Stirling and synod of Perth and Stirling, this parish was detached from Falkirk in 1618, and is now divided ecclesiastically among the quoad sacra parishes of Haggs, Bonnybridge, and Denny, the two first formed in 1875 and 1878, and the last a living worth £393. Denny public and Roman Catholic and Lawhill and Longcroft public schools, with respective accommodation for 350, 188,50, and 250 children, had (1880) an average attendance of 278,115,16, and 236, and grants of £244, 7s. 10d., £113,11s., £27,18s., and £206,10s. Valuation (1860) £13,098; (1882) £24,820,4s. 4d., including £1833 for railway. Pop. of parish (1801) 2033, (1831) 3843, (1861) 4988, (1871) 4993, (1881) 5728; of Denny registration district (1881) 4228.—Ord. Sur., sh. 31, 1867.
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