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DENHAM in 1844, is a small scattered village, nearly 7 miles W.S.W. of Bury
St. Edmund's, has in its parish 182 souls, and 1990 acres of land, having a good
mixed soil. William Francis Gamuel Farmer, Esq., is impropriator, owner of the
soil, lord of the manor, and patron of the Church, (St. Mary,) which has a
singularly constructed tower, and is a perpetual curacy, endowed with a yearly
stipend of £100, and now enjoyed by the Rev. R. Staphen Stevens, of South
Petherwin, Cornwall, for whom the Rev. Edward Bosanquet, of Dalham, officiates.
In Edward the Third's time, Denham belonged to the Hethe family. It was
afterwards appropriated to some monastic institution, and was granted at the
dissolution to Sir Edward Lukemore, of whose son and great-grandson there are
handsome monuments in the church, the latter bearing a fine recumbent effigy.
The heiress of the Lukemores carried the estate in marriage to the first Lord
Viscount Townshend, who died in 1087, and it belonged to his family in Kirby's
time. The Hall, which was the seat of the Lukemores, is now a moated farmhouse.
On a farm called Denham Castle, is a moated eminence, supposed to have been
occupied by the Saxons or Danes. In 1662, Lady Mary Townshend left £100, to be
laid out in lands, and the profits thereof to be applied in apprenticing poor
orphan children of this parish. The estate purchased consists of a house and
about 8a. 1r. 8p. of land, at Cowling, let for £14 a year, which is given partly
in apprentice fees and partly in blankets. The poor parishioners have £2 a year
out of Denham Hall estate, given by one of the Townshend family.
Barrow Joseph, blacksmith
Drake Maria, vict. Plough
Robinson Francis, gamekeeper
Walker John, carpenter & wheelwright
FARMERS.
Halls Frederick. Edwin, Abbot's Hall
Halls Elizabeth, Denham Castle
Halls James, Denham end Lodge
Halls Joseph, Denham Hall
Sparrow James