Denton (near Gravesend), Kent Genealogy

England   Kent

Parish History
Denton is part of the Town of Gravesend in the Gravesham district of Kent.

Denton St Mary is a former Ancient Parish in Denton near Gravesend. The ruined church site was rebuilt in 1903, conserving some medieval remains to form the Roman Catholic church of St Mary since 1940 and is in Gravesend civil parish.

The Roman Catholic Church of St Mary Denton, Rochester Road, Gravesend has been designated as a grade II listed building British listed building

The ancient small church was part of the mediaeval manor which was later part of the see of Rochester lands.

Edward Hasted in his 1797 The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3 Pages 471-477 describes the church as follows:

"The church, which was dedicated to St. Mary, was but a small building of one isle, with a chancel and bell tower. It stood on a bank, close to the road side; the whole has been some time in ruins, though it was not so in the Kilburns time, in the middle of the last century; soon after which, service being discontinued in it, the materials were taken down and sold, or otherwise disposed of. The outside walls, for the most part, yet remain, having the buildings of the adjoining farm yard built up against the north side of it. On the south east human bones have at times been dug up where the cemitery was, now part of the farm-yard."

The parish was small and to the east of the Cliffe-Gravesend road and was sparsely populated marsh and agricultural land ( Hasted mentions only two houses). The Ancient Parish is recorded as existing in 1851

This ancient parish should not be confused with Denton (near Dover), Kent in the same county.

See Denton North West Kent Family History Society and Edward Hasted The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3 (1797), pp. 471-477. at British History Online

Civil Registration
Birth, marriages and deaths were kept by the government, from July 1837 to the present day. The civil registration article tells more about these records. There are several Internet sites with name lists or indexes. A popular site is FreeBMD.

Church records
There are no parish registers for Denton near Gravesend; the present arrangement of search in the Family History Library refers only to Family History Library film numbers  for the parish of Denton (near Dover), Kent in the Diocese of Canterbury.

Census records
Denton census returns are included in the census returns for Gravesend. Census returns for Gravesend 1841-1891

FamilySearch Records includes collections of census indexes which can be searched online for free. In addition FamilySearch Centres offer free access to images of the England and Wales Census through FHC Portal: Computers here have access to the Family History Centre Portal page which gives free access to premium family history software and websites that generally charge for subscriptions. to locate local Family History Centres in UK to locate outside UK. Many archives and local history collections in public libraries in England and Wales offer online census searches and also hold microfilm or fiche census returns.

Images of the census for 1841-1891 can be viewed in census collections at Ancestry (fee payable) or Find My Past (fee payable)

The 1851 census of England and Wales attempted to identify religious places of worship in addition to the household survey census returns.

Ancestry UK Census Collection

Find my Past census search 1841-1901

for details of public houses in the 1881 census

Prior to the 1911 census the household schedule was destroyed and only the enumerator's schedule survives.

The 1911 census of England and Wales was taken on the night of Sunday 2 April 1911 and in addition to households and institutions such as prisons and workhouses, canal boats merchant ships and naval vessels it attempted to include homeless persons. The schedule was completed by an individual and for the first time both this record and the enumerator's schedule were preserved. Two forms of boycott of the census by women are possible due to frustration at government failure to grant women the universal right to vote in parliamentary and local elections. The schedule either records a protest by failure to complete the form in respect of the women in the household or women are absent due to organisation of groups of women staying away from home for the whole night. Research estimates that several thousand women are not found by census search. Find my Past 1911 census search

Poor Law Unions
North Aylesford Poor Law Union, Kent (renamed Strood)

Probate records
Records of wills, administrations, inventories, indexes, etc. were filed by the court with jurisdiction over this parish. Go to Kent Probate Records to find the name of the court having primary jurisdiction. Scroll down in the article to the section Court Jurisdictions by Parish.

Maps and Gazetteers
Maps are a visual look at the locations in England. Gazetteers contain brief summaries about a place.
 * England Jurisdictions 1851
 * Vision of Britain

Web sites
Contributor: Add any relevant sites that aren’t mentioned above.