Dent and Yorkshire Dales

The town of Dent today lies in Cumbria, just west of the border of Yorkshire, within Yorkshire Dales National Park. There are a number of Dent families entered into Church records in the southern part of this region in the 18th Century and early 19th Century. There is also quite and extensive family contemporary to this time at Warton, near Borwick Hall in Lancashire, not far from this area.

The area including Thornton-in-Lonsdale and Chapel-le-Dale and Ingleborough Mountain has been associated with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights₁. A Thomas Dent married Anne Foxcroft in 1745. Both were from Bentham. The Foxcroft family owned Hallsteads, the prototype for Thrushcross Grange according to Christopher Heywood.₂

1. Bronte, E. (2001). Wuthering Heights, ed Christopher Heywood. Orchard Park, Broadview Press

2. ibid