Bedham consists of a farm, a derelict Victorian church and school, and a scattering of houses set high on a wooded sandstone ridge of the western Weald, at 150 metres above sea level.

Honour Thy Father - Recollections of Sussex Life over Two and a Half Centuries[3] recounts much Bedham history centred on Mants, the cottage where its author Lillian Hunt's grandfather lived.

[5] An agreement of 1769 between the owner of the manor, William Mitford of Pitshill at Tillington, and the tenants provided for the enclosure of common land to create woodland managed as coppice, although the areas involved are not specified.

During these years Elgar enjoyed learning craft skills from the woodmen at Flexham Park and composed his last four great works - the Violin Sonata in E minor, Op.

These works were said to be inspired by the local woods and by a strange legend of a clump of trees said to be the remains of Spanish monks who had engaged in sacrilegious ceremonies in the park and been struck by lightning.

[11] Their daughter Esther Julia was born in November 1920. Letters between the couple show that they kept some ducks and were helped with the garden by a neighbour called Standing.