Bentley is a fairly suburban village between Ipswich and Manningtree, but long, beautiful lanes lead off in several directions into the woods and fields, and the church is along the one which heads in the general direction of Belstead and Wherstead. About a mile from the village you reach a small outlying hamlet, the raggedy hedges giving way to the surprise of a neatly clipped churchyard and St Mary's crisp exterior.
A bequest of 1458 left money to the tower, and in 1487 Nicholas Malebott left half a noble to painting St Christopher, which would have been on the north wall inside the nave and suggests that the rebuilding of the church was complete by then. However, what we see today is essentially a 19th Century church, largely the work of diocesan surveyor Richard Phipson, and very little that is older survives. What does, suggests that this was a Norman building. The grand Norman south doorway is almost entirely renewed, but it is done well, the chevrons and peacock eyes familiar from the surviving genuine articles around the county. A Norman window survives on the north side of the chancel. Phipson brought the Ipswich carpenter Henry Ringham along with him, so we may assume that the furnishings are of the highest quality.
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