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Writer's pictureSue Lowday

Early Maps and History of Bonchurch 1729 - 1890

Updated: Feb 10

I am adding old plans of the grand houses from sale records in addition to links to early maps and OS Maps that I hope visitors will find helpful for their research. The joy of these maps is that it is possible to zoom to view any area in detail. The current interest in researching the Dickens character Miss Havisham in Madeira Hall and other linked characters such as Mr. Dick who lived at Upper Mount (Uppermount) can be traced in these maps.


The earliest map link to look at is Sheet XCIX (includes: Sandown Shanklin; Ventnor and Bonchurch) Surveyed: 1862 to 1863, Published: 1866 Size: map 61 x 92 cm (ca. 24 x 36 inches), on sheet ca. 70 x 100 cm (28 x 40 inches)

Copy and paste this link. https://maps.nls.uk/view/102343218


Hampshire & Isle of Wight XCIX.SW (includes: Sandown Shanklin; Ventnor and Bonchurch) Revised: 1896, Published: 1898 Size: map 31 x 46 cm (ca. 12 x 18 inches), on sheet ca. 43 x 58 cm (ca. 17 x 23 inches)

Copy and paste this link. https://maps.nls.uk/view/101442453


Hampshire & Isle of Wight XCIX.SW (includes: Sandown Shanklin; Ventnor and Bonchurch) Revised: 1907, Published: 1909 Size: map 31 x 46 cm (ca. 12 x 18 inches), on sheet ca. 43 x 58 cm (ca. 17 x 23 inches) Copy and paste this link. https://maps.nls.uk/view/101442450


Hampshire & Isle of Wight XCIX.SW (includes: Sandown Shanklin; Ventnor and Bonchurch) Revised: 1938 to 1942, Published: ca. 1947 Size: map 31 x 46 cm (ca. 12 x 18 inches), on sheet ca. 43 x 58 cm (ca. 17 x 23 inches) Copy and paste this link. https://maps.nls.uk/view/101442447


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Glebe Map For John Popham 1729


"According to the Plan of REW, STEEPLE, COOKES, VENTNER, LITTLE-TOWN, MARE POOL, MACKETS AND BON-CHURCH farms."

The Property of John Popham Esq, 1729

(click on it to enlarge)

Note how the road runs from the village road round the front of the church in area 'u'.

The Shute wasn't carved out at this time.

The road ran down into Winterborne and across the area that is now Spring Cottage, then in front of the church and onto Luccombe.

Take a look at other blogs relating to maps on this site.

With thanks to Jane Ashe and her father Peter Brett for this document.



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Tithe Map 1729 (The Undercliff of the Isle of Wight past and present. John L Whitehead)


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Plan of the Glebe at Bonchurch Isle of Wight, surveyed by W. Mortimer & Son, June 1838

The Old Church and Lands


Note that the access to the church was via the road down to Winterborne and across the area of where currently Spring Cottage lies. You can still see the outline of the stone entrance in the churchyard.


Note the route of the spring water running from the front of the old church.

With thanks to Jane Ashe and her father Peter Brett for this document.


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The earliest maps of Bonchurch are Tithe Maps.


Tithes were originally a tax which required one tenth of all agricultural produce to be paid annually to support the local church and clergy.

After the Reformation much land passed from the Church to lay owners who inherited entitlement to receive tithes, along with the land.

By the early 19th century tithe payment in kind seemed a very out-of-date practice, while payment of tithes per se became unpopular, against a background of industrialisation, religious dissent and agricultural depression.

The 1836 Tithe Commutation Act required tithes in kind to be converted to more convenient monetary payments called tithe rent charge. The Tithe Survey was established to find out which areas were subject to tithes, who owned them, how much was payable and to whom.

The first task of the Tithe Commissioners appointed to oversee the administration of the Act was to discover to what extent commutation had already taken place.

Enquiries were directed to every parish or township listed in the census returns. The results of these enquiries are in the tithe files, which cover the whole of England and Wales, and not only those places where tithes remained uncommuted by 1836. For parishes where tithes were still being paid in kind, the land had to be surveyed and valued, to arrive at total parish rent charge figures, and to calculate each individual landowner’s liability to pay tithe. Assistant tithe commissioners travelled to these parishes to hold meetings with parishioners about valuations, and to settle the terms of the commutation of their tithes.

These terms were formalised in a document called a tithe agreement, if all parties concurred, or a tithe award, if the assistant commissioner had to arbitrate in a dispute. The agreement or award formed the basis of the tithe apportionment, which was the legal document setting out landowners’ individual liabilities. Each apportionment was accompanied by a map; both were signed by the Tithe Commissioners. Tithe rent charge then became payable.


With thanks to the National Archives for the above information.

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A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 5

Author - William Page (editor) - Year published – 1912

BONCHURCH

Bonecerce (xi cent.); Bonechirche (xiii cent.).

Bonchurch contains 565 acres, of which 89 are arable land, 246½ permanent grass and 51 acres woodland. (fn. 1) Fifty years ago it was a collection of villas under St. Boniface Down; to-day it is a suburb of its younger neighbour Ventnor (q.v.), and includes the well-known Landslip. The entrance to the old village by the ponded water, the site of a former withy-bed, which skirts the road to the north, is, or was, very picturesque. At the Landslip end of the village stands the old church, now disused, with its graveyard of notable dead. Here is buried John Sterling, the friend of Hare and Carlyle; and here too the Rev. William Adams, fellow and tutor of Merton College, Oxford, best known perhaps as a writer of allegories. Monks' Bay lies to the north under the old church, and is said to have derived its name from having been the landing-place of the monks of Lire when they came to collect dues from their island possessions. A small outlying piece of land attached to the glebe is called 'Bishops' Acre,' and has given rise to a legend without foundation. (fn. 2) The only houses of any note are Undermount, occupying the site of the old farm-house, and now the property of Mr. Henry Michell; and East Dene, once the home of Algernon Charles Swinburne, the poet, but now in the hands of an English religious community of the Sacred Heart. Bonchurch is said to have been the birthplace of Admiral Sir Thomas Hopsonn; Algernon Swinburne lies buried in the new churchyard. Edmund Peel, the poet, resided many years at Underrock, and for sixty years Miss Elizabeth M. Sewell, the authoress, lived at Ashcliff.


MANORS

BONCHURCH was held before the Conquest as an alod by Estan of Earl Godwin. In 1086 it belonged to William son of Azor, (fn. 3) and was of considerable worth, doubtless owing to the grazing value of its chalk downs. Sir John Oglander gives the following fanciful account of its early history: 'The church was erected in the reign of William the Conqueror by John de Argenton, a Frenchman, to whom William Fitz Osbern gave Bonchurch. Argenton "got it to be made a parish by means of his brother's son Walkelin, then Bishop of Winton." ' (fn. 4) The Argenteins, however, do not seem to have held any land in the Isle of Wight until the end of the 12th century. It was one of the manors held by John de Lisle at the end of the 13th century of the honour of Carisbrooke, (fn. 5) and it followed the same descent as West Court in Shorwell (q.v.) to the Popham and Hill families. (fn. 6) The part held by the Hills passed to Rosa daughter of Lieut.-Col. Charles Fitz Maurice Hill, who married the Rev. James White. (fn. 7) The Bonchurch estate, belonging to Mrs. Rosa White, was put up for sale in 1836 and passed to different owners. (fn. 8) In 1863 the manorial rights were purchased by Dr. Leeson, but none are now exercised.

LUCCOMBE

LUCCOMBE (Lovecombe, xi cent.) was held of the Confessor by Sawin as an alod, and at Domesday was in the hands of the king. (fn. 9) It formed part of the original endowment of Quarr, (fn. 10) having been given to the abbey by Hugh de Mandeville. At the beginning of the 13th century Walter de Insula (Lisle), with the consent of his son Geoffrey, endowed Quarr with the cultivated ground on the side of St. Boniface Down next Luccombe. (fn. 11) Luccombe continued to belong to the monastery till the Dissolution, (fn. 12) when it passed to the Crown. It was granted in 1553 to Thomas Reve and George Cotton, (fn. 13) who sold it two days later without licence to William Colnett. In 1557–8 William obtained licence to retain the manor, (fn. 14) of which he died seised in July 1594, leaving as his heir his son Barnabas, (fn. 15) who in 1602 disposed of it to Michael Knight of Landguard, (fn. 16) who died seised of it in 1612. (fn. 17) It remained in the Knight family till 1753, when Anne Knight, spinster, disposed of it to William Pike, (fn. 18) who devised it to —Bonham. In 1782–3 it was in the possession of members of the families of Bonham, Carter and Atherley, (fn. 19) and in 1791 Edward Carter and his wife Harriet were dealing with it. (fn. 20) At the beginning of the 19th century it had come to the Atherley family; in 1891 it was sold by Mr. Arthur Atherley to the Slater Ball Syndicate, and is now split up into various ownerships.


CHURCHES

There was probably a church here before the compilation of Domesday, but the oldest part of the present building is at least a hundred years later. The church itself is of the usual early type: a nave and chancel separated by a simple arch springing originally from imposts, now hacked away. Windows have been inserted in the 13th (fn. 21) and 15th centuries. The arch to the south door seems made up of voussoirs from elsewhere. The porch is comparatively modern, probably added in the 17th–18th century, and the bell-cote at the west end is a modern addition of the last century. A tempera painting on the north wall of the nave (fn. 22) was discovered in 1847, but no copy was made of it before it crumbled away. There is a Renaissance wooden cross on the altar of good design, probably Flemish, and against the south wall is fixed the funeral achievement of the Hill family. The church has been disused, except as a mortuary chapel, since 1848. The new church of St. Boniface was erected in 1847–8, on a site given by the Rev. James White, from designs by Benjamin Ferrey, and consists of nave, chancel, transepts and south porch. It was added to in 1874, but is a building of little interest. A memorial font commemorates the Rev. William Adams.

The bells and plate are modern.

The registers begin in 1734 and include some entries for Shanklin. The earlier ones were destroyed by fire in 1769.


ADVOWSON

Advowson or patronage is the right in English law of a patron to present to the diocesan bishop a nominee for appointment to a vacant ecclesiastical benefice or church living, a process known as presentation. The word derives, via French, from the Latin advocare, from vocare "to call" plus ad, "to, towards", thus a "summoning" (Wiki).


The advowson of Bonchurch apparently passed with the manor to Dr. Leeson, (fn. 23) from whose executors it was bought about 1873 by the Simeon trustees. It passed from them in 1880 to the Church Patronage Society, who still hold it. (fn. 24)


CHARITIES

Mrs. Sibella Hamilton by her will proved at London 22 May 1889 bequeathed £100, the income to be applied for the benefit of the poor. The legacy is represented by £102 13s. 11d. consols, with the official trustees; the annual dividends, amounting to £2 11s. 4d., are duly applied.

A convalescent home in connexion with the Royal Hants County Hospital is situated in this parish, for endowment of which the official trustees hold the sums of £291 16s. 8d. consols, and £2,103 13s. 4d. India 3 per cent. stock, transferred to them under an order of the High Court 13 July 1903, arising from the gift of the Rev. Edward Thomas Hoare, producing £70 7s. 8d. a year.


Footnotes

1. Statistics from Bd. of Agric. (1905).2. Davenport Adams, Guide to Isle of Wight (1888), 190.3. V.C.H. Hants, i, 521.4. Oglander Memoirs (ed. W. H. Long), 196.5. Testa de Nevill (Rec. Com.), 240. Five of the eight manors held at this time by John de Lisle belonged in 1086 to William son of Azor.6. For references see Wootton and Shorwell. William Jakeman of Bonchurch 'fermor,' who was holding Bonchurch in 1431, was perhaps a lessee under the Lisles (Feud. Aids, ii, 365).7. Berry, Hants Gen. 185.8. Tithe map, 1844.9. V.C.H. Hants, i, 458.10. Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 316–17; Harl. Chart. 55 D. 21.11. Madox, Formulare Angl. cccxvi.12. Dugdale, op. cit. v, 320.13. Pat. 7 Edw. VI, pt. xiii, m. 27.14. Ibid. 4 & 5 Phil. and Mary, pt. xi, m. 16.15. Chan. Inq. p.m. (Ser. 2), ccxxxviii, 31.16. Feet of F. Hants, Mich. 44 & 45 Eliz.17. W. & L. Inq. p.m. xlvi, 107.18. Feet of F. Hants, East. 21 Chas. I; Hil. 26 Geo II.19. Ibid. Div. Co. Trin. 23 Geo. III.20. Ibid. Mich. 31 Geo. III.21. Lancet in north wall of chancel. Stone, Archit. Antiq. Isle of Wight, i, pl. viii.22. Said, at a meeting of British Archaeological Society at Bonchurch in 1855, to have been a representation of the Last Judgement.23. Egerton MS. 2031, fol. 4, &c.; Feet of F. Hants, East. 4 Edw. III; Chan. Inq. p.m. 19 Edw. III (1st nos.), no. 52; Cal. Pat. 1377–81, p. 525; 1381–5, p. 403; Inst. Bks. (P.R.O.); White, Gazetteer of Hants, 1859.24. Clergy Lists.‹ previous

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Part of the Tithe Map 1843 (annotated with land owners names)





Summary of the landowners 1843

1843/1844

On the 1843 Bonchurch Tithe Map the Luccombe Cottage property was shown as plot number 67, comprising 3 acres 26 perches (about 1.5 hectares). This plot seems to include the property to the west which was to become known as Dunnose Cottage. A new building is shown here where the farm buildings had previously stood. Dunnose Cottage is itself a small cottage orné and it would appear that it was built between 1833 and 1843 as an addition to the ‘Luccombe Cottage' estate. Another new building shown on the tithe map was the lodge in the north west corner of the former field to the west of Luccombe Cottage. This is not shown on the 1833 plan but is listed in the 1841 census.



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Here is a link to the important piece of legislation enabling the development of Bonchurch 1841

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/changes/chron-tables/private/30

Chronological Tables of the Private and Personal Acts –

Acts of the Parliaments of United Kingdom

Part 30 (1841-1847)

1843 (6 & 7) Vict.).


C27 - Reverend James White's and others' estates: confirming two leases and enabling the surrender of leases and the grant of new leases of estates in Bonchurch (Isle of Wight) (Hampshire).

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Part of the earliest Ordnance Survey Map of Bonchurch 1862

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Freehold map of Combe Wood (also known as Coombe Wood), and originally called Uppermount, now called Peacock Vane.

The stables shown on the map is now a residence and called Uppermount.


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