Bentley is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the Babergh district of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

, England, about southwest of

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Suffolk, England. It is the county town, and largest in Suffolk, followed by Lowestoft and Bury St Edmunds, and the third-largest population centre in East Anglia, ...

. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 776. Bentley has a

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...

, a

Reformed Baptist Reformed Baptists, also called Particular Baptists, or Calvinist Baptists, are Baptists that hold to a Calvinism, Calvinist soteriology (salvation belief teached by John Calvin). The name "Reformed Baptist" dates from the latter part of the 20 ...

church, a Church of England primary school, a pub, a Village Hall and a riding school. A community owned village shop opened in the summer of 2016. Bentley has a parish council. It also had a forum called Bentley Free Speech that commented on matters relating to the parish council and other village issues. There was also an alternative news site called Bentley News, which was managed by a local resident. The

Eastern Union Railway The Eastern Union Railway (EUR) was an English railway company, at first built from Colchester to Ipswich; it opened in 1846. It was proposed when the earlier Eastern Counties Railway failed to make its promised line from Colchester to Norwich. T ...

was built through the parish and opened on 15 July 1846. Bentley railway station was about east of the village, and served the area until

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

ways closed it in 1966. The station was a junction between 1847 and 1965 for the Hadleigh branch line. The branch line also had a short-lived station called Bentley Church (1847-1853). The main line railway is now (2016) known as the

Great Eastern Main Line The Great Eastern Main Line (GEML, sometimes referred to as the East Anglia Main Line) is a major railway line on the British railway system which connects Liverpool Street station in central London with destinations in east London and t ...

References

External links

Bentley Parish CouncilBentley Village Hall (Suffolk)

The Case is Altered
{{Authority control Babergh District Civil parishes in Suffolk Villages in Suffolk