Benacre is a village and civil parish

Civil parish

In England, a civil parish is a territorial designation and, where they are found, the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties...

 in the Waveney

Waveney

Waveney is a local government district in Suffolk, England, named after the River Waveney that forms its north-west border. The district council is based in Lowestoft, the major settlement in Waveney, which is the only unparished area in the district...

 district of the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 of Suffolk

Suffolk

Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...

. The village is located about 5.75 miles (9 km) south of Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

 and 1.5 miles (2 km) north-east of Wrentham

Wrentham, Suffolk

Wrentham is a village in the north-east of the English county of Suffolk. Wrentham is located about 2 miles from the coast along the A12 trunk road...

, between the main A12 road and the North Sea

North Sea

In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

 coast. Neighbouring villages include Kessingland

Kessingland

Kessingland is a large village in the Waveney District of the English county of Suffolk. It is located around south of Lowestoft. It is of interest to archaeologists as Palaeolithic and Neolithic implements have been found here; the remains of an ancient forest lie buried on the seabed.There has...

 and Covehithe

Covehithe

Covehithe, formerly North Hales, is a hamlet in a parish in Blything district, Suffolk, England. Lying on the coast around North-east of Southwold,also 8 miles South from the town of Lowestoft...

 with the town of Southwold

Southwold

Southwold is a town on the North Sea coast, in the Waveney district of the English county of Suffolk. It is located on the North Sea coast at the mouth of the River Blyth within the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The town is around south of Lowestoft and north-east...

 5 miles (8 km) to the south.

The village is dispersed around Benacre Hall, the estate of the Gooch

Gooch Baronets

There have been two Baronetcies created for persons with the surname Gooch, one in the Baronetage of Great Britain and one in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom....

 family. It had a population of around 70 in mid-2008. The population declined dramatically during the 20th century from 216 at the 1901 census.Benacre CP: Historical statistics – population, Vision of Britain. Retrieved 2011-05-07. The village has few basic services. The former parish church of St Michael is now privately owned by the Gooch family. It is medieval in origin and a Grade II* listed building, although extensively rebuilt following a fire in the 18th century. The church of St Andrew

St Andrew's Church, Covehithe

St Andrew's Church, Covehithe, is a partly redundant Anglican church in the hamlet of Covehithe in the English county of Suffolk. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building. Part of the church is in ruins and this is under the care of the Churches Conservation Trust...

 in Covehithe now acts as the parish church for Benacre.

At the Domesday survey

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

 the village's name is given as Benagra within the Hundred of Blythling

Blything (hundred)

Blything was a hundred of eastern Suffolk, and with an area of was the largest of Suffolk's 21 hundreds.The origins of the hundred centre around the ancient royal estate of Blythburgh, whose hall housed the hundred's central meeting place....

. It formed part of the holdings of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, as it had before the conquest, with one freeman recorded as living in the manor.