The Swinburne family residence East Dene is on the Shute running down to the Old Church, Admiral and Lady Swinburne's son, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne spent part of his boyhood in Bonchurch, at East Dene, and was buried in 1909 at the Parish New Church, his grave being the subject of a poem by Thomas Hardy. His funeral, attended by crowds of people, aroused a lot of controversy as Algernon Swinburne was an atheist and his friends attempted to disrupt the funeral believing it should have no religious content.