Cherry Orchard farm in Fenny Bentley was once known as Bentley Hall (not to be mistaken with Bentley Hall south of Ashbourne) today known as the Old Hall it is a three-bay, two storey farmhouse with a single gable.Bentley HallBentley Hall

Craven and Stanley – ‘The tower which has late seventeenth century mullioned and transomed windows is the remains of what Lysons describe as ‘once a large castellated’ mansion which lay within a moat. A second tower is said to have once existed and foundations were found when the house was rebuilt in 1894 when the tower lost its original entrance and castellations. Its date is probably fourteenth century  although it may have been earlier.
From the mid-thirteenth century until at least 1364 this site was the seat of the Bentleys.
It became a farmhouse of the Goodwin Johnsons of Callow Hall in the 19th century followed by several changes of ownership.’

Fenny Bentley Hall has a squat, medieval ‘half’ tower dating from the 15th century when the building was the seat of the Beresford family. The famous Beresford tomb of Thomas Beresford and his wife Agnes Hassall is in nearby St Edmund’s church.
The tower is all that remains from the fifteenth-century fortified and moated manor of the Beresfords. It has been suggested that the tower was the gatehouse of the moated hall.

According to Pevsner the hall is all that is left of the village of Hungry Bentley, except a clearly defined street pattern in the surrounding fields. It is the best deserted medieval village site in the county.