DENTON is a sleepy dot of a place to the north-west of Darlington, now known for being the home of racehorse trainer Michael Dods.
There’s a 1,000 or more years of history and the whiff of an interesting scandal at Denton, but this “retired little village”, as it was called in Victorian times, is easily overlooked.
So easily that in Memories 539, way back in the summer, we didn’t recognise it when it appeared on one of our mystery pictures.
Top: Denton in our mystery pictyure from the 1950s and, above, as it is today
John Hoy, though, spotted its distinctive farm buildings, which lie between Summerhouse and Walworth.
Carol Joyce said: “I used to go to the little village school there in the early 1970s, where there were only about 20 pupils. Mr Foster was the headmaster. I lived at Archdeacon Newton and the school bus used to do the rounds picking the kids up for school from all the little farmhouses on the way. Fond memories!”
Man has been tramping across the fields of Denton for millennia. A prehistoric stone hammer has been found there, and a little to the south, on a small rise called Ruffley Hill, are the remains of what is thought to be an ancient burial barrow.
The Romans were aware of Denton, as their Dere Street from Piercebridge to Binchester passed just a few hundred yards to the east. They sprinkled their coins about the fields and some sources say they left a temple in the village.
Even the Scots were aware of Denton because it is said that on a 13th Century raid they burned it along with all the other villages high on the north side of the River Tees – Houghton-le-Side, Walworth, Carlbury and Ulnaby were all torched by the unwelcome visitors.
Unusual small headstones in a part of Denton churchyard next to Denton Hall
Successive lords of the manor who lived in Denton Hall – the names of Neville, Tempest, Brackenbury, Tonge and Milbank can all be found in the parchments – rebuilt the village and so that by Victorian times, when it was owned by the Duke of Cleveland in Raby Castle, it was quite a bustling place.
“The village contains a blacksmith’s, a cartwright’s, and a grocer’s shop, a public house and a school, which is conducted by the clergyman,” says a Victorian directory.
The Denton pub, though, shut before the end of the 19th Century; the grocer closed his doors in 1900 and the cartwright finished work in 1905. Carol’s school (below) closed in 1976 after 102 years, and the village church closed in 1995 after many, many centuries.
The church (above) has medieval beginnings – it has a stone coffin which once reputedly held the body of a Knight Templar, and another tomb has a carved female figure on it which is said to be the wife of Aubrey de Conyers. It has been rebuilt on numerous occasions over the centuries, most recently in 1890 when noted Darlington architect JP Pritchett oversaw the work. Like the school, it is now a private residence.
Inside the former church in Denton when it featured on an ITV property programme 15 years ago
For 50 years in the 19th Century, the Reverend Thomas Peacock was the perpetual curate at the church. He lived down the road in Thornton Hall and ran Denton school.
Thornton Hall, where the Peacocks lived
He was a mathematician, and his book, The Practical Measurer containing the Uses of Logarithms, Gunter's Scale, the Carpenter's Rule, and the Sliding Rules… was a big success in its day.
George Peacock, who was born in Thornton Hall, near Darlington, in 1791
He taught his son, George, at Denton school before he went on to Richmond Grammar School and then Cambridge University where he become Professor of Astronomy. He was also regarded as one of the leading algebra thinkers of his day.
The Rev Peacock had many interests around Darlington – in 1821, he was a “collector of subscriptions” for the Stockton & Darlington Railway, encouraging local people to invest in it – and on October 4, 1823, he apparently tried to place a very peculiar advert in the Durham Advertiser, The Northern Echo’s sister paper.
The advert said that “certain malicious and slanderous reports, highly derogatory to the character and reputation of the Reverend Thomas Peacock, of Denton, had been for some time past privately and disgracefully circulated” and it called on whoever was spreading the appalling rumours to come forward and justify their claims or forever hold their peace.
The editor of the Advertiser checked with the vicar before publication and it turned out that the advert was a highly inventive forgery. Mr Peacock said he knew of no rumours nor any reason why anyone would wish to harm his name by publicly suggesting there were.
All most peculiar, but it just goes to show that Denton is not the sort of place that should be overlooked.
IN 1963, The Northern Echo recorded that mains water was going to reach the out-of-the-way village of Denton. The water was, said the Echo, going to be delivered along “asbestos concrete pipes”.
Hopefully, once the water had arrived, the people of Denton boiled it for safety – just as you have to do today in the Darlington area.
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