D/DHf E205 - Estate Notebook, records of various Essex families

Records compiled by Sir Thomas Bendish of Steeple Bumpstead before he took up a post as Ambassador in Turkey. It includes miscellaneous papers, including particulars of rents in 1644; notes on tenancies; poor relief; a list of money received in tithes; survey of farm land; debts owed by tenants and a copy of Bendish's will.

At the back in reverse are three diary entries on sickness in August 1640, of the building of a "dining chamber" and chapel and on his imprisonment in the Tower of London in March 1642/3. There is also a list of "maxims in divinity & reason". There are three inserted loose sheets of sermons notes, with diary entries from 1709 and 1710 written on their backs.