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7 unusual facts about Bonchurch


Battle of Bonchurch

The Battle of Bonchurch took place sometime in late July 1545 at Bonchurch on the Isle of Wight.

Chevalier D'Aux

Chevalier D'Aux was a senior French commander who, while leading a foraging party into the Isle of Wight to search for sources of clean water to replenish the stocks of a French fleet, which had just been forced to retire from Portsmouth, was attacked and killed in July 1545 by a group of the local Isle of Wight militia, at Bonchurch.

This event occurred shortly after a French attempt to capture the Isle of Wight, an invasion which was concluded by the English victory at the Battle of Bonchurch.

Horseshoe Bay, Isle of Wight

It should not be confused with a similarly named bay about 15km southwest at Bonchurch.

Monk Gibbon

In 1928, he married Mabel Dingwall, daughter of Walter Molyneux Dingwall of Bonchurch and Mabel Sophia Spender, a daughter of Edward Spender of Bath, Somerset.

Octavius Hadfield

Octavius Hadfield (born 6 October 1814 at Bonchurch, Isle of Wight, United Kingdom - died 11 December 1904 at Edale, near Marton, Manawatu, New Zealand) was Archdeacon of Kapiti, Bishop of Wellington from 1870 to 1893 and Primate of New Zealand from 1890 to 1893.

Steel Bay

The bay is remote and is best viewed from Dunnose which can be accessed by scrambling over The Landslip which is close to the Isle of Wight Coastal Path in the woods to the east of Upper Bonchurch.


A3055 road

Leeson Road, named after the 19th century Bonchurch resident Henry Beaumont Leeson, is the segment of the A3055 that runs from Ventnor, at the foot of St Boniface Down, along the clifftop above Bonchurch, the Bonchurch Landslips and the Devil's Chimney.

Battle of Bonchurch

The plan for the advance of the French soldiers at Bonchurch may have been to burn Wroxall and Appuldurcombe, capture and consolidate a position on the heights of St. Boniface Down, and then move towards Sandown to link up with a French landing there.

Elizabeth Missing Sewell

Until 1844 the family lived at Pidford Manor or Ventnor, but in that year Mrs. Sewell and her daughters settled at Sea View, Bonchurch.


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