Dendron is a small village in South

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in North West England, bordering Scotland. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local government, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. C ...

, England. It is situated around three miles from the town of

Barrow-in-Furness Barrow-in-Furness is a port town in Cumbria, England. Historic counties of England, Historically in Lancashire, it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with Dalton-in-Furness Urban District in 1974 to form the Borough of B ...

. The village was once just a collection of farms, but many of the old farm buildings have now been converted into houses for commuters working in Barrow,

Ulverston Ulverston is a market town and a civil parish in the South Lakeland district of Cumbria, England. In the United Kingdom Census 2001, 2001 census the parish had a population of 11,524, increasing at the United Kingdom Census 2011, 2011 census to ...

and

Dalton Dalton may refer to: Science * Dalton (crater), a lunar crater * Dalton (program), chemistry software * Dalton (unit) (Da), the atomic mass unit * John Dalton, chemist, physicist and meteorologist Entertainment * Dalton (Buffyverse), minor ch ...

. The village is mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

as ''Dene'', and the name is thought to mean ''sheltering place for deer'' - it is only a coincidence that it is the same as the Greek for tree.

The Church and School

The most notable feature of the village is the 17th century St Matthew's Church. It was originally built as a chapel of ease in 1642, and it spent most of its early life as a school for the village children. In 1652, the famous Quaker George Fox preached with some success at the chapel and noted that "no priest had ever preached in it" before this time. It was not until 1671 that a Minister was properly appointed to serve Dendron. The renowned artist George Romney, born in nearby Dalton, was educated for a short time at the school but was removed in 1745 by his father because he had failed to make any progress. In 1833 a new schoolroom was built opposite the churchyard, replacing what had once been a cockpit, and in the same year the

vicarage A clergy house is the residence, or former residence, of one or more priests or ministers of religion. Residences of this type can have a variety of names, such as manse, parsonage, rectory or vicarage. Function A clergy house is typically ow ...

was built. The schoolroom still stands today as a meeting room and Sunday school, but was replaced in the 1870s by another, larger building some distance south of the village in which were educated most of the children from the villages of Dendron,

Leece Leece is a village on the Furness peninsula in Cumbria, England, between the towns of Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness. Amenities The village. is built around a tarn and a village green, and Henry Armer & Son, a smithy established in 1914 th ...

and Gleaston. This building later became a primary school, but in 1994 it ceased to be a school at all when it was amalgamated with two other small rural schools into Low Furness C of E School in Urswick; it is now a house. Beside it stands a War Memorial commemorating parishioners lost in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Dendron did not become a

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

church until 1892.

References

Villages in Cumbria Furness Aldingham {{Cumbria-geo-stub

The Church and School

See also

References