Relhan Collection : 36 Bottisham. General view of Bendish Farm and church

Relhan, Richard, 1782-1844

Relhan Collection

<p style='text-align: justify;'><p>This view of the church fits the location and descriptions of Bendish Farm. Thomas Bendish acquired 100 acres in 1329, and by 1351 the family had more than doubled this holding and built a moated farmhouse with the usual outbuildings and a fishpond. Their farmhouse was rebuilt in grander style c.1593, after intermarriage with the Webbs of neighbouring Tunbridge Hall.The family moved into this substantial new house, a gentleman’s residence of red brick with a bay window to S, a hall, parlour and various chambers. A later marriage brought the house into the Clench family, who sold it to Peterhouse in 1754, which held it until 1965. From the 1740s the house was tenanted, and it was in this period it was drawn by Relhan, just in time for it was replaced by the present grey brick Bendish Farm, to the N, soon after Enclosure in 1802. Archaeological excavations in 2011 before new houses were built revealed C8-9 Saxon ditches of a small farmstead which saw major reorganisation in the late C11, just after the Norman Conquest.</p><p>VCH 2002; On-site notice board </p></p>