BENNELL FARM AND BENNELL COURT

The history of Bennell Farm is closely linked with that of other Toft farmsteads. At the time of Enclosure (1812/1815) the land that was subsequently to become Bennell Farm was free of any farmsteading, as the post-enclosure map of 1845 indicates. The present farmhouse dates from 1892 at which time it was referred to as 'Top Lodge' and later 'Bennell Lodge'. The lands forming this property became part of the estate of the Reverend Samuel Smith as a result of the Inclosure Act, and on whose death in 1841, conjoined with other lands of the estate including Great Priory Close, it was purchased by the Sons of the Clergy.

A 150 acre portion of the estate, Orchard Farm, that included Bennell Lodge, was leased to Joseph Tebbit in 1846 under the terms of an up-to-date farming system. [The lease specified that 30 acres were to remain permanent grass and the remainder was to be farmed on a four-year rotation; barley, various beans, peas, clover or seeds, wheat, and fallow with about 30 acres being sown with each crop annually. ] The rent of the farm declined in the period 1873 - 1914 from £204 a year to £100, at which time the farm was sold to the Tebbit family, whom had been tenants since 1845. The same family still owned the farm in 1967.

In 1912 Bennell Lodge was in the Estate of the late Ellis Staffurth and sold to Mary Mitchell. The farm bailiff was Lawford Cundell (bailiff to Staffurth since 1900). Bennell Farm was purchased back into the Tebbit family in 1922(?) by Richard Claude Tebbit (father of Clifford). Between 1919 and 1924 brothers Claude and Bernard (Bert) Tebbit ran the Old Farm, part of Orchard Farm, and Bennell Farm in partnership. Bert Tebbit had responsibility for Orchard Farm and Bennell Farm from 1924 onwards. On his retirement his sons Ken and Derrick took over.

Derrick Tebbit sold Bennell Farm to Willy Stephens in 1973, a racehorse trainer, who erected the battery of 36 stables to form a quarantine establishment - this function was never brought to fruition. Interested in the land, Clifford Tebbit acquired the farm in 1983, by which time the older farm buildings were in a poor state. In 1985 he sold on the farmhouse and farm buildings, with 25 acres, to Robert Arnold. Robert maintained a herd of Maine Anjou cows and sucklers until ill health caused him to dispose of his pedigree livestock in 1992.

In 1994 the farmsteading was divided and the stabling converted to form 13 lettable units. These small business premises are referred to as Bennell Court. Bennell Farm is now the base of Robert Arnold and his son James's Beechwood Estate Development company. The farmland, at one time comprising 310 acres, is now contract farmed. The business units of Bennell Court have housed a range of small enterprises including a Health Care Trust and Disability Trust. Current occupants include a quantity surveyor, software programming agency, and Belbin Associates - an international management consultancy specialising in Team Role Theory.

The accelerated changes in agricultural economics and technology after the Second World War precipitated the redundancy of farmsteadings and buildings for agricultural purposes. As with many village settlements, Toft is now an established location for a number of smaller new business ventures operating within the larger scientific and commercial orbit of Cambridge. Where farm buildings have been sympathetically turned to new useful purposes in such a fashion that retains the visual traces of their rural origin, the agricultural legacy of the village is preserved. New companies and enterprises with no indigenous roots in the village economy reintroduce vibrancy into what was potentially a dying working environment, where most inhabitants needed or desired occupations elsewhere. The new structures of social and economic community in Toft have managed to preserve the rural scale and quality of village life in an era of continuing expansion and reorientation, and to rekindle the vitality that comes from the mix of work and general life within a habitat.

BELBIN ASSOCIATES

Bennell Farm has undergone a number of transformations, from farm to specialised stabling for racehorses, and in the early 1990's part of the property comprising the battery of stabling erected by racehorse trainer Willy Stephens, was converted into small lettable business units and titled Bennell Court. An occupant of Bennell Court since 1994, Belbin Associates are archetypal representatives of the newer 'exotic' occupations that have taken residence in the village.

Belbin Associates is a consultancy, established as a partnership in 1988, formed around the research of its founder Dr Meredith Belbin, a management theorist and Visiting Professor to Henley Management College. It evolved a theoretical model for decision-making based on identifying the range of distinct personalities effective within group decision-making processes. The techniques have been developed from business management to all kinds of teams involved in group decision formation, and is applied by its Cambridge based staff to teams all round the globe. The Consultancy helps organisations and individuals through testing, training and courses, including team-building exercises. On-line testing is a major part of its work with 80,000 persons a year now taking the Belbin test.

Management Team study at Henley-on-Thames led to the application of business games techniques to effective decision-making. A behaviour profile was developed in which each member of a decision-making team represents a set of clustered personality characteristics and plays a distinct and differentiated role in the team. These key roles include a Plant - a creative, imaginative, unorthodox responsibility for problem solving; a Resource Investigator - acting as networker; a Co-ordinator; Shaper - a challenger; a Monitor Evaluator; a Teamworker - maintaining inter-personal relationships; an Implementer - practical efficiency; a Complete Finisher - an eye for detail and delivery; and a Specialist - for single-minded specific knowledge.

Peter Johnson and Colen Lumley