England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Denton All Saints

The Parish

The parish of Denton lies in northern Huntingdonshire forming a stretch of the county's border with neighbouring Northamptonshire. Denton is located roughly 8 miles southwest of the city of Peter borough and stands about 1 mile west of the former A1 (Great North Road), which is nowadays the A1(M) motorway. Denton is a small village sitting at the end of its own dead-end lane, it forms an oblong of lanes holding most of the few properties with more along its access road. Denton parish was peculiarly shaped being a thin strip of land running east from the Northamptonshire border to the Great North Road with little depth from north to south. The county border is also complicated as Lutton parish in Northamptonshire sends a similarly shaped spear of land deep into Huntingdonshire territory. Denton was a farming parish, today highly intensively arable, at the time of this transcript more rotational but still arable.  Denton is drained eastwards by a small brook which soon becomes embroiled in Fenland drainage, it meets the Nene and follows that river to the North Sea through the Wash. Denton is sited at around 25 metres above the sea in gently rolling terrain where local high spots rarely exceed 50 metres. Denton parish was one of the smallest in its county covering just 600 acres which would have supported a population of around 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Denton was equally small and rural, held by the Bishop of Lincoln it offered 6 ploughs backed by meadows & woodland.

The Church

All Saints' church sits as a picturesque ruin at the northern corner of the village's oblong of lanes. The church was de-roofed in 1962 and has been left to become overgrown. The church was not a medieval church, rather it was built in1629 but did incorporate some medieval fabric, such as the Early English Gothic 13th century chancel arch, within the rebuild. A northern porch is recorded as being added in 1665 whilst the western tower is of uncertain date. The church remains also sit within a veritable forest of trees such that they are totally screened from the lane, a way in sits almost opposite a farm track to the north with a prominent open sided barn.