Denbigh High School

General information

Denbigh High School was named for the Denbigh community of Newport News, the seat of the former Warwick County. Denbigh was named after Denbigh, England, in Warwickshire. The first court of Warwick County was held at Denbigh Plantation in 1623.

Public education in Denbigh began in the mid-1800's in a one-room schoolhouse, which stood just north of Stoney Run, not far from the Denbigh Courthouse. As the village grew and prospered, new houses and businesses appeared along Courthouse Way, including a tavern located near the old Denbigh Hotel. Wishing to avoid the negative influence of the nearby tavern, the citizens moved their school across the creek to a parcel of land where Denbigh Early Childhood Development Center now stands.

The first high school classes were held in a two-room structure built near the smaller schoolhouse. On the same site, the "original" Denbigh High School was completed in 1913. It was a two-story, frame building containing five large classrooms. There were four students in the first graduating class in 1917.

A steady increase in the number of school-age children made it necessary in 1920 to convert Denbigh High School into an elementary school and to bus high school students to Morrison High School, which was located on the site of the present day Warwick High School. It would be another 45 years before there would be another high school in Denbigh.

Until 1941, African-American students from Denbigh attended the Brookville School, located near the present site of Newsome Park School. From 1941 to 1949, they attended Morrison High School for African-American students, located on Warwick Boulevard near the First Baptist Church of Morrison. The new Carver High School opened its doors in 1949. Denbigh area students attended Carver until "Freedom of Choice" provided the option of attending Denbigh High School.

The present Denbigh High School serves the northern section of the city and sits on a 32-acre campus. It was built at a cost of $3 million in the early 1960s, opening in the fall of 1965 to approximately 1,280 students in grades 8 to 12. With the opening of Dozier Intermediate School in 1974, Denbigh became a senior high school, serving students in grades 10 to 12. With the adoption of a citywide middle school plan several years later, a ninth grade was added.