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A village with shady woods, leafy lanes with hedges gay with Dog roses and Honeysuckle. Along the wayside clusters of wild flowers: Campions, Harebells, Cowslips, Meadow Sweet, Lady's Smock and many more. Early spring 1919, the people of Bentley were invited by the Hen. Stanhope Tollemache to a party at the Manor. Villagers were taken there in wagonettes from Dodnash Priory Farm. It was a grand party to celebrate England's victory of the First World War. On the way to the Manor we pass Bentley Hall with the herringbone tithe barn. Home of Mr. Elkington, founder of the East Anglian Daily Times and inventor of machinery for the printing press. Dodnash Priory Farm was owned by Great Eastern Railway. Lord Claud Hamilton, chairman of Great Eastern, and other officials visited the Priory at Easter, Harvest, Christmas and the shooting season. They were met at the railway station, which was a junction for Capel, Raydon and Hadleigh, by a pony and trap. At the end of the harvest the farm labourers and wives had a Harvest Horkey in one of the barns. They were given cold roast beef and pork, vegetables and pickles and ale to drink. They then entertained themselves with songs and choruses. Before coming home they were presented with their Harvest Bonus. At the forge in Grove Road, Mr. Death the village blacksmith with hammer and anvil, shed the horses, and at a cottage in Grove Road the doctor held his weekly surgery and there he mixed his own medicines for patients to take home. Further along, the village shop weighed and packed up all goods over the counter and patted up butter, lard and margarine with wooden pats, baked bread and delivered it round the village in horse and cart. William Cooper, the village roadsman with brush and shovel, commonly known as Tater Cupper, trimmed the roadside, cleaned out ditches etc, lived down Case Lane, near the Inn, 'The Case is Altered'. There were two other Public Houses, the 'Railway Tavern' and the 'Tankard', which was on the Bentley side of the old London Road. Bentley School had three teachers and seventy-two children. The Head Mistress lived in the School House adjoining the school. One Empire Day, after marching round the playground, saluting the flag, singing 'God Save the King', children heard the voices of King George V and Queen Mary sending a message recorded on gramophone record to children in England. A senior citizen brought her old-fashioned gramophone to school on which to play the records. In the meadow of the Priory Farm stands a large stone, the ruins of the old Dodnash Priory. Legend has it there was an underground passage from the Priory to the convent at East Bergholt; also, if anyone could raise the stone, hidden treasure lies beneath it. So far no one has been able to raise the stone, so treasure, if any, still lies hidden. Almost hidden by large cedars is the little church. The fine hammer beam roof of the nave is six hundred years old and the lovely east window of the Ascension has eleven apostles in green, red and blue cloaks. Some labourers brewed their own beer with malt and hops in large wooden tubs, enough to last a year. Some walked to Manningtree for a hair cut, which cost two pence in old money. All water was drawn from a well or pump and all milk was fetched from a farm daily. Saturday afternoons village lads played quoits and formed a quoits club and a football team nicknamed the 'Bentley Wide-a-wakes'. Once a year the village held a flower show accompanied by a fair'with roundabouts, swinging boats, coconut shies, hoopla etc. These days are long past and perhaps there is a touch of sadness that we no longer stroll down leafy lanes with gay hedgerows and see the lovely wild flowers that once bloomed by the wayside, no longer hear the blacksmith's hammer on his anvil, or pass the time of day with Tater Cupper or on a dark Sunday night see along the road the twinkling lights from lanterns carried by village folk on their way to Evensong. ANON |
