Fenny Bentley

The Ashbourne Library is an excellent resource with a Local History section and a Family History section.

David KELLY has a photograph of the church graveyard on Geo-graph, taken in April, 2018.

• The parish was in the Calton sub-district of the Ashbourne Registration District.
   
• In 1911, the parish was in the Brassington sub-district of the Ashbourne Registration District.
   
• The table below gives census piece numbers, where known:
   

• The Anglican parish church is dedicated to Saint Edmund, King and Martyr. The church has ALWAYS been dedicated to St. Edmund, but for some 380 years people thought the dedication was to St. Mary Magdalene. No reason for the error has been noted.
   
• A chapelry existed here as early as 1240.
   
• The church was re-built in the early 14th century, and little of the older building has survived.
   
• The church was thoroughly restored in 1850 and the tower added.
   
• The spire was added in 1864.
   
• The church seats 200.
   
• Nikki MAHADEVAN has provided a photograph of St. Edmund's Church at Geo-graph, taken in January, 2007.
   
• And there is another photograph of St. Edmund's Church at Geo-graph, taken in January, 2010.

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1604, but early years are very illegible. The pages for 1642 through 1660 are missing.
   
• The Family History Library has the parish registers on microfilm covering 1604 to 1991.
   
• The church was in the rural deanery of Ashbourne.
   
• There was a Wesleyan Methodist chapel built here in 1832, but by 1890 it was only occasionally used.

• Civil Registration began in July, 1837.
   
• The parish was in the Calton sub-district of the Ashbourne Registration District.
   
• In 1911, the parish was in the Brassington sub-district of the Ashbourne Registration District.

"BENTLEY is a small agricultural parish, in the same hundred as Tissington, about a mile and a half, south, from that village. Part of the old Manor house is still standing, and is occupied as a farm house. The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, is a small structure with a low tower: the living is a discharged rectory, in the patronage of the Dean of Lincoln. The parish contained, at the last census, 308 inhabitants."

[Description from Pigot and Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire, 1835]

Note: The church dedication above is incorrect.

Neil THEASBY has a photograph of the Bentley Brook Inn on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2016, This Inn is at the southern tip of the village.

• Geograph
• Flickr

• Rosemary LOCKIE provides a transcription of the Bentley entry under Tissington from Pigot & Co's Commercial Directory for Derbyshire (1835).
   
• Ann ANDREWS provides a transcription of the Fenny Bentley entry from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (1891).

• Mel LOCKIE provides a transcription of the Fenny Bentley entry from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England, 1831.
   
• The transcription of the section for Fenny Bentley from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin HINSON.

• Ask for a calculation of the distance from Fenny Bentley to another place.

Samuel WEBSTER of Parwich married a Harriet MILWARD in Fenny Bentley in 1810.

• The parish is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book, where its name is recorded as Benedlege.
   
• The land has been used chiefly for pasturage.
   
• Peter BARR has a photograph of the Coach and Horses pub on Geo-graph, taken in June, 2010. This pub is also at the southern end of the village.
   
• Sandra SNOW has a photograph of the Bentley Brook Inn (off the B5056) on Geo-graph, taken in June, 2008.

• Nikki MAHADEVAN has provided a photograph of the Old Manor Hall at Geo-graph, taken in January, 2007.

You can see maps centred on OS grid reference SK175502 (Lat/Lon: 53.048779, -1.7404), Fenny Bentley which are provided by:

• OpenStreetMap
• Google Maps
• StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
• Bing (was Multimap)
• Old Maps Online
• National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
• Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
• English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
• Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
• GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)

• All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
• Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.

In 1891, Colonel Arthur Corbet MAURICE (retired), Royal Minster Fusiliers, resided in this parish with his wife Emily Stuart and two sons.

Neil THEASBY has a photograph of the Memorial window in the parish church on Geo-graph, taken in March, 2016. This window is dedicated to Major Beresford Arthur Jardine HAVELOCK who was killed in action September 14th 1918 while serving in Azerbaijan with the 7th Bn. North Staffs. regiment.  He was christened in Bankurah, Bengal, India on 21 Jan 1890.  He was burried in Surrey, England, in 1918.

There is a Roll of Honour also mounted on a wall inside the church.

There is a War Memorial inside St. Edmund's Church. The names are:

1. Arthur Allen
2. Harry Allen
3. Herbert Baker
4. Frederick Moorcroft
5. Reginald Sal
6. Thomas Wagstaff

On the north side of the church chancel is a square alabaster monument to Thomas BERESFORD, who, according to the inscription, specially distinguished himself at the battle of Agincourt, 25 Oct. 1415, and died in 1473, and to Agnes, his wife, who died in 1467.

There are seven other mural monuments to the same BERESFORD family, dating from 1516 to 1815, and brasses to Richard BERESFORD (1733).

There is a monument to the Rev. Garton Howard B.A. late rector (1877).

On the south side of the church is a memorial window to Harriet, wife of the Rev. J. BARNES M.A. sometime vicar of Tissington (1879).

• This place was an ancient parish in county Derby and became a modern Civil Parish when those were established.
   
• This parish was in the ancient Wirksworth Hundred (or Wapentake).
   
• District governance is provided by the Derbyshire Dles District Council.

• The Reverend Francis GISBORNE, sometime rector of Staveley, who died in July, 1821, by his will dated 7th May, 1818, bequeathed £6 10s. annually to this pariah, which is expended in warm clothing for the poorer inhabitants.
   
• Ten shillinges yearly is paid to the poor from PORT's Ilam charity.
   
• Bastardy cases were heard at the Petty Sessional Hearings at the Green Man Inn in Ashbourne every Saturday.
   
• There is an index of only three Fenny Bentley Bastardy Papers held at the DRO on the Yesterdays Journey website. Select "Bastardy Papers" on the left side, then "Fenny Bentley" from the list of parishes displayed.
   
• With the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act reforms of 1834, this parish became a member of the Ashbourne Poorlaw Union.

Robert Matthew LOWNDS had his Will probated on 30 Sep 1929 in London. He was born in Fenny Bentley in 1873. His beneficiaries were Elizabeth and Frederick LOWNDS.

A Public Elementary School (mixed) was erected in 1858 to hold 80 children.

The Beresford Family Society hold an annual reunion here every spring.