FENNY BENTLEY, Derbyshire

Census

• 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:
  
  

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Church History

• 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. Nor 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 2007.
  

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Church Records

• The Anglican parish register dates from 1604, but early years are very illegible. The pages for 1642 through 1660 are missing.
  
  
• The London Family History Centre 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.
  

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Civil Registration

• 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.
  

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Description and Travel

"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.

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Directories

• Ann Andrews provides a transcription of the Fenny Bentley entry from Kelly's Directory of the Counties of Derby, Notts, Leicester and Rutland (1891).

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Gazetteers

• The transcription of the section for Fenny Bentley from the National Gazetteer (1868) provided by Colin Hinson.

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History

• The land has chiefly been used for pasturage.

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Manors

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

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Military Records

• There is a War Memorial inside St. Edmund's Church. A photograph and names are listed at Derbyshire War Memorials.
  

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Politics and Government

• 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).
  

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Poorhouses, Poor Law, etc.

• With the passage of the Poor Law Amendment Act reforms of 1834, this parish became a member of the Ashbourn Poorlaw Union.
  

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