Just east of Ventnor, Bonchurch is a small village on the Undercliff, the strip of old landslips along the south coast. At the end of the village road is the Old Church of St Boniface, a little church whose nave and chancel are 11th-century, still used for candlelit services in summer. The poet Swinburne spent part of his boyhood here and is buried at the Victorian parish church. Henry de Vere Stacpoole, author of The Blue Lagoon, gave the village its pond in memory of his wife, and Dickens spent the summer of 1849 here writing part of David Copperfield. St Boniface Down, the island’s highest point, rises behind the village, while the Bonchurch Landslips to the east have been closed since a major landslide in December 2023.
© Lewis Clarke / Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0
