When the bakehouse was in operation, it was mostly the men of the village who took the Sunday dinners to the oven, and then were able to stand and gossip together while the meal was cooking. Cecil Robinson from Cogenhoe, known as Cease, used to come with his horse and trap to cook the Sunday dinners; he was always dressed in knee breeches and polished leather gaiters. Charlie Gayton, a tailor by trade, and known as ‘Tally-Ho’, helped with the oven.

While the dinners were cooking Cease would get Jim Ingram to shave him and cut his hair, and of course all the men had a drink or two before collecting their dinners. If one were well in with Cease, the dinner would be delicious; otherwise it was likely to be what was known as a ‘white dinner’.

 In those days there were two carrier’s carts which regularly travelled the six miles between Denton and Northampton. Villagers who wanted to go into town had to sit where they could in the cart – on barrels or bundles – and had to get out and walk up all the hills on the way. Those who did not want to suffer these inconveniences gave a list of their requirements to the carriers who bought the purchases back on their return.

The children at the local school travelled every year by wagonette to Castle Ashby for their annual sports, where there was great rivalry between six or seven neighbouring villages although Denton children were well satisfied if they could manage to beat their arch-rivals from Yardley Hastings. The sports were always held on the last day of term before the August holidays, and the winning village held the flag for twelve months.

In May every year, the May Queen, supported by her Maids of Honour, and the boys arrayed in cross-sashes and caps, went to sing outside the Castle at Castle Ashby. They were each rewarded with a new penny, a bag of sweets – tied with a hair ribbon for the girls – and a currant bun, after which they returned to Denton for tea in the schoolroom.

Plough Monday, celebrated on the second Monday in January, was not such a happy occasion; men came in from other villages to plague the inhabitants, who had to hand money over to them. Failing this, the hand plough was brought into use to plough away the footscraper from the offender’s door.

The village green was the scene of the Denton Feast on the Sunday following the 20^th July. Bands came from nearby Earls Barton and Hackleton to play and the Fair had to wait till all the worshippers were out of the church before drawing on to the green. There were caravans parked along the length of the street, stalls outside the pub and always throngs of people.On Sunday morning a musician used to play his trumpet up and down the street while his dancing bear performed. After the show the bear was always given his pint of beer and we assume the trumpeter also downed a few pints after entertaining the village.

Everybody in the village kept a pig; when it was killed it was singed and washed, and put on a stick against the wall to cool and drain. When it had been cut up, the children of the village fought for the bladder, which was blown up and used as a football.

 Villagers also had their own corn plots; when the corn was cut, the favourite means of thrashing it was to catch an eel, salt it to make it less slippery to handle, and then skin it. The skin was bound between two sticks with tarred rope to make a ‘frail’ or ‘thrail’ with which the corn was thrashed.After winnowing the corn was double ground at either Billing or Cogenhoe Mill. When the farmers were thrashing on a larger scale the youngsters delighted to catch a mouse by the back of the neck, tie a string on its tail and keep it tucked in a trousers or apron pocket. In school the mouse still tethered by its tail was thrown on to the neck of the child in front.

When a baby was born in the village, the parents were entitled to collect a bundle of clothes from the Vicarage; on the return of the bundle a card for a free joint of meat was given in exchange.

 There was in existence a Blanket Club, and a Coal and Clothing Club. A married couple was entitled each year to eighteen faggots of wood from the free riding of Denton Wood, but widows and widowers had 20 faggots to keep them warm.

There was a Reading Room in the village where papers were available to all. Bible Readings were held there, and the men used the room to play dominoes. The Ladies’ Club met regularly and always had a celebration tea in the barn on Whit Monday with fiddlers supplying music for dancing afterwards.

 The Dovecote, now an Ancient Monument, still stands in the village. Pigeons were reared here and two to three thousand birds were sold locally each year.

The Trough on the village green, only used now for the washing of cars, was used for watering horses, and very few of the older members of the community have not had a ducking in the Trough in their youth.

 The old sheep dip in the field was shaped like a key-hole; a man in waders stood in the tank, hooked a sheep, and doused it well in the dip before releasing it to go up the ramp for shearing.

 As for the local characters, Charlie ‘Tally-Ho’ Gayton was so called because of his habit of shouting whenever the Hunt was in the vicinity; his father, for reasons not known, was called ‘Poppet’. ‘Slippery Joe’ was nicknamed because he could slide out of doing any sort of work. He used to get drunk, then stand on his head on the green. Sammy Cawley, having buried four wives, and looking for a fifth, went to one of the local ladies, saying – ‘The Lord has sent me to see if you will be my wife’. He got short shrift with her retort: ‘Well the Lord has sent you to the wrong place this time!’

Fish-O’ came from Wollaston, and the children used to sing to the fishmonger from Earls Barton ‘Old Tommy Austin sells his fish, three ha’pence a dish’