Castle Ashby -the‘big house up the road’ has for many centuries been inextricably linked with Denton and other surrounding villages.

It is commonly quoted that Henry VIII gave Castle Ashby to Sir William Compton but this is not correct. Between 1567 and 1574 Henry, Lord Compton was defendant in a law suit by which the Plaintiff, the 6^th Earl of Kent, tried to re-claim the manors of Castle Ashby, Yardley Hastings and others adjoining. These had been sold by Richard, 3^rd Earl of Kent, in 1506 to his brother-in-law Sir John Hussey, who, on December 10^th 1512 sold them again to Sir William Compton for £1,100. One wonders whether it was because of this litigation that it took 62 years to start building the existing house or whether the 13^th century Norman Castle it replaced was not, in fact, in such bad condition as had been suggested!

It is immediately obvious that the impressive Castle Ashby House is not a castle at all but rather an ornate Elizabethan house the building of which was commenced around 1574 by Henry, 1^st Baron Compton. The building work spread over a considerable period of time and was continued, after Henry’s death in 1589, by his son, William Compton who was created Earl of Northampton in 1618. The House boasted a succession of Royal visitors, Elizabeth I in 1600 and King James I and his Queen Anne of Denmark in 1605 at which time the household had 83 household servants and four chaplains! In 1895 King William III also visited the estate and was instrumental in introducing the concept of creating impressive avenues in the gardens, an idea that was later to be partly reversed by Capability Brown’s more ‘modern’ ideas.

 By this time the 4^th Earl of Northampton, George Compton had inherited the title and estate and ever since the house and land has passed through the Compton family generations until the present. The current 7^th Marquess of Northampton is Spencer Douglas David Compton who took over the running of the estate in 1978 on the death of his father William Bingham Compton who held the office for no less than 65 years from 1913.

It is William Bingham Compton, therefore, the 6^th Marquess of Northampton who was at Castle Ashby for much of

The extent of the land owned by the estate included significant areas of Denton parish. Broadly, and slightly over simplistically the land to the East of the brook running through the village was estate owned and to the West of the brook was Church land. Ironically one of the main exceptions to this rule is that St Margaret’s Church itself is on the estate side of the line!

It follows that as far as farms are concerned Manor Farm, Vicarage Farm, Dentonwood Lodge, The Elms, Wareing Farm were or are Estate owned whilst Church Farm, Grange Farm, Denton Lodge Farm, Chase View Farm and Mere Barn Farm were all originally on Church land – but all have for many years been in private ownership.

As half the working population  a hundred years ago worked on the land in one way or another it followed that a lot of Dentonians were employees of Compton Estates and the estate would provide at least some of them with housing by owning properties in the village which were then rented out.

Over the years some of these have been sold off into private hands but there are still around 16 estate owned properties including the 2 rows of houses in Bedford Road known as New Buildings and Flannel Row. The row of 3 pretty thatched cottages in Wareing Lane are also estate properties (see picture on Home page)

Other land in the parish is still owned by the estate such as the allotments behind the Old Butcher’s Shop and The Maltings. The latter is a relatively recent property, built around 1970, on what was Estate land at the time and was originally occupied by Victor and Marjorie Hill. Victor was farm manager at the estate and had just retired after 49 years service.

Past records of all sorts sometimes give an insight into the relationship Denton folk had with authority. It seems a lot were of independent nature and the fact the non-conformist Baptist movement was so strong in the village gives credence to this view. Against this background it is encouraging that it seems the relationship with the Lord of the Manor seems to have been generally good with appreciation on both sides for what each did for the other.

There are a number of examples to support this.

There are affectionate references in memories from old villagers to the annual trip, in the years between the Wars, for the over 7 year-old children to participate in inter-village sports and enjoy tea afterwards. The annual garden show, held at Castle Ashby in the same era, was also an occasion of competition between the green-fingered of all the villages around – and, in those days, the majority were keen gardeners out of necessity.

It would have been the 5^th Marquess, William George Spencer Scott Compton who was at Castle Ashby when the ‘Flannel Row’ row of houses in Bedford Road was built. Their name comes from the fact that the tenants were invited to Castle Ashby once a year to receive an allowance of flannel material – which was a valued commodity in those days and was used to make clothes including underwear. This is another example of the consideration which existed between landlord and tenant.

When it came to the church and school the Earl, or latterly the Marquess, was a constant supporter both financially and often in person. The Estate was a ‘patron’ of the church often supporting projects, such as repairs, with generous donations. And it was not only the mainstream church that benefited as the Baptist Chapel was provided with land owned by the estate on which to build an extension. And it was Lord Northampton who stepped in the breech at short notice when the Evangelists’ tent on the village green burned down in 1908 by lending one of his tents for them to use.

This was the era of the current Spencer Compton’s father, William Bingham Compton who was the 6^th Marquess from 1913 until his death, at age 92, in 1978.

William Compton was also present when the memorial to the First World War fallen was unveiled in August 1920. Later, in 1927, he was at the church again, and read the lesson, when a service to commemorate the latest renovation of the building was held.

Much later it was his son, Spencer Compton, who had inherited the role in 1978, who opened the new Denton village hall in 1982 with a good proportion of Denton’s population present. The family paid for the chairs and tables to go in the hall as their contribution.

 The whole population of Denton and other villages were invited to Castle Ashby to celebrate the millennium and a good day was had by all with a resurrection of some of the old inter-village competitions from days gone by.

So through the ages the connection between landowner and tenants, and later landowner and community, has been a generally harmonious one – something which cannot be said of all such relationships elsewhere.