The village of Denton lies in a hollow four miles south west of Grantham in Lincolnshire.

The name Denton dates back to the Domesday Book, the great land survey ordered by William the Conqueror in 1086, in which it is recorded as Dentune. The word itself derives from the Old English denu and tun and means the farmstead village in the valley. It had become Denton by 1174.

There is a long history of occupation here and traces of an Iron Age community have been found by archaeologists over the years. The site of a Roman villa was discovered in 1727 and there is a drawing of a tessellated pavement from that period in Grantham Museum. Excavations in 1959 also established that the house was about 100 feet long by 40 feet. It had a detached bathhouse and was thought to have been rebuilt in stone about 370 A D but ironstone quarrying has now destroyed all of the remains.

The present village of Denton is L-shaped and has the undeniable charm of well-built estate cottages from the 19th and 20th centuries with grey stone walls and mellow red roofs, built mainly from the warm, golden ironstone that is quarried in the vicinity. The village is spread around the confines of the park that once surrounded Denton Manor, one of the great country houses of Lincolnshire, originally built in the 17^th century but replaced in 1883 with a grand neo-Tudor mansion designed by Sir Arthur Bloomfield that became noted for its collection of furniture and pictures. The tenant at this time was Sir Charles Glynne Earle Welby, Bt. who became chairman of Kesteven County Council and was one of the prime movers in the re-organisation of local government in this part of Lincolnshire. In fact, the far reaching changes introduced under the Local Government Act of 1929 are thought to have been worked out between Sir Charles and his close friend Neville Chamberlain, then Minister of Health but later to become Prime Minister, who visited him often at Denton Manor.

This large but rather gloomy house however was not to last and it was pulled down in 1939 at a time when country properties of this size had become too large to maintain and only the stables and the Tudor gate house alongside the main road into Leicestershire remained together with a splendid avenue of ancient horse chestnut trees that now leads to a new and spacious house that was built on the site in 1962 for the sixth baronet, Sir Oliver Welby, using the small nucleus of the original property that had survived in the stable court area from 200 years before.

In the park is a chalybeate spring called St Christopher's Well that feeds a group of lakes while north of the park flows a stream, which fills another big lake serving as a reservoir for the Grantham Canal. This is known as Denton Reservoir and has a capacity of 61 million gallons of water. Earlier this century, it was noted as an ice skating venue during the winter months and it is now well known for its fishing, particularly pike, bream, roach and perch, and the rights are let to the Grantham Angling Association. The reservoir is also popular with birdwatchers who come here to see coot, moorhen, mallard, teal, pochard, heron, great crested grebe and kingfishers.

There is also a grotto here and inside are ammonites, coloured stones and verses from 1823 ending:

Approach you then with caution steps

To where the streamlet creeps

Or Ah! too rudely you may wake

Some guardian nymph that sleeps.

St Andrew’s Church is a light and spacious clerestoried building standing in an attractive position overlooking one of the park lakes. The interior is predominantly Perpendicular and dates mainly from the 15th century, although largely rebuilt but retaining many old features, including the sedilia, the piscina, and the font with the carved rosettes. The 600-year-old screen has been re-fashioned in recent years and the rest of the woodwork in the chancel is entirely modern, including six angels with outspread wings looking down from the roof. Modern glass in the east window shows the scene at the empty grave of Our Lord and twelve angels in gorgeous raiment above. Four golden-haired angels are among old fragments in a side window.

Five stone heads look out from each of the arcades and in the south aisle is the recumbent effigy of John Blyth, erected in 1602, and depicted wearing a tunic, breeches, and long cloak. Kneeling on the side of his tomb are his wife, three sons, and three daughters, the name of each child inscribed above its head. In the other aisle is the wall monument of Richard Welby, erected in 1714 during the final year of Queen Anne’s reign, with two cherubs carefully crowning his bewigged head, and two infants mourning him below. The inscription is a catalogue of his virtues, modesty, humility, courtesy, probity and universal charity, and describes him as a forbearing landlord, prudent master, and invaluable friend. The Welby family, of course, were Lords of the Manor, patrons of the church and benefactors of this parish for several centuries until recent times.

The oldest memorials are floorstones, which have lost their brasses, and another engraved with a much-worn figure of an unknown priest.

The village also contains the Welby Almshouses, built in ironstone with grey stone dressings in 1653, and erected in the manner of a folly or conceit. They are particularly notable for their massive array of six chimney stacks which rise from between two roof ridges.

The old Post Office at Denton

The Leys House, once the schoolhouse, can be found immediately east of the church and was built during the 18^th century in the traditional Queen Anne style. Over the impressive stone doorway is an open triangular pediment enclosing the Welby armorial and the inscription: “Learn to know God and Thyself 1720”.

The rectory dates from 1840 and the Old Manor House at the south east end of the village from 1640.

Denton is a village that evokes a memory of the English country estate of past times, when the Lord of the Manor, or the Squire as he was often known, had life and death power over his tenants because apart from providing them with employment, he was also usually the local magistrate and therefore sat in judgment over their misdemeanours and patron of the church where they worshipped and who was instrumental in appointing the parson. So it was that he was the major influence in their lives, a state of affairs that continued until two successive world wars during the 20^th century dramatically changed the old order in favour of a more democratic society.

Text © Rex Needle May 2001