Lewis Tregonwell

Lewis Dymoke Grosvenor Tregonwell (/trᵻˈɡʌnəl/ trə-GUN-əl; 1758–1832) was a captain in the Dorset Yeomanry and a historic figure in the early development of what is now Bournemouth.

Born 1758 in Anderson, Dorset, Tregonwell lived at Cranborne Lodge as the squire. His second wife was Henrietta Portman. When Henrietta’s second child Grosvenor Tregonwell died, having been accidentally given a double dose of medicine, Henrietta sank into a melancholia, which resulted in the Tregonwells holidaying at Mudeford, near Christchurch, Dorset to recuperate. During their holiday they visited ‘Bourne’ which they found so delightful that they bought land, in 1810, built a house and so precipitated the growth of Bournemouth.

More than 200 years earlier, Tregonwell’s direct ancestor, Henry Hastings, the eccentric Dorset sportsman (son of George Hastings, 4th Earl of Huntingdon), had briefly controlled the land that his great-great-great grandson bought, when he was lord of the manor of Christchurch from 1597 until 1601. Hastings’ youngest daughter Dorothy married Thomas Tregonwell.

By 1796 Tregonwell was Captain of the Dorset Rangers and led cliff top patrols of the Dorset Yeomanry in the area of Bourne Heath between 1796 and 1802 during the Napoleonic Wars. The eastern part of Dorset was under the command of Henry Bankes of Kingston Lacy; Bankes divided his area into several smaller parcels, and allocated officers to each area. Tregonwell was matched with the easternmost region, which took him up to the Liberty of Westover (now the site of Bournemouth). The rangers’ duty was to keep watch for smugglers, particularly along the cliff-tops, where Chines (wide fissures in the soft cliffs) allowed potentially easy access for smugglers and French invaders.

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