once visited Lord Darcy's residence, St Osyth Priory. It is believed she may have arrived at Harwich accompanied by her courtiers and rode via Horsley Cross, Little Bentley, then on to Great Bentley Green before finishing her journey to St Osyth. Great Bentley owes much of its growth to the coming of the railway in 1866, with the railway station being named Bentley Green before being changed to its present title of Great Bentley in 1877.

Two new housing estates were built in the 1960s