History | Tregonwell Almshouse

This picture shows Milton Abbas from just above the pub on the left hand side, looking down the hill towards the lake.

The two houses just above the Church on the left of the street burnt down around the middle of the 19th Century and were replaced by two brick built cottages.

The Almshouses are directly opposite the Church on the right hand side of the road.

Milton Abbas was originally called Middleton, that is middle tun the middle farm or hamlet.

The original church was founded by King Athelstan of Wessex circa 933, to commemorate the death of his brother Edwin who died at sea. In 964 King Edgar turned-out the priests and replaced them with Benedictine monks from Glastonbury. Around the monastery a thriving town grew to over 100 houses, a school, a brewery, prosperous traders and several taverns.

After the dissolution of the monastery in 1539 it was sold the following year to Sir John Tregonwell, solicitor to Henry VIII who arranged his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, for £1,000. He made the Abbey Church into the parish church and used the abbots lodging as his own private residence. Middleton, as it was known until 1753, was a prosperous market town sitting in the valley between the present-day Milton Abbas and the Abbey. In 1647 the great grandson of Sir John Tregonwell, also John but now living in (Winterborne) Anderson Manor, endowed the building of “Almshouses for six poor people of the parish” in Newport Street, Middleton.

Under the Will of the late John Tregonwell of Anderson, Esq. dated 7th February 1647. This made provision for "six Poor Persons of the said Town and Parish, each to be given one Shilling a week, together with three yards of blank broad cloth yearly, to be given to them on Saint Thomas's Day to make them gowns, and also one pair of shoes and a pair of stockings and ten Shillings in money".

The money was to be raised from "...his Manor Farm and land, commonly called Bugbeare (now Bagber) in Milton Abbas..." and the six Poor People should be "...men or women dwelling in the said Town of Milton Abbas of good fame.....should frequent the Church of Milton and usually receive the Sacrament and hear Divine Service and Sermon there and should behave themselves orderly or else be expelled". The running of the premises was left to the Churchwardens and the "...Overseers of the poor of the Parish".

The estate was bought by Joseph Damer in 1752; he tore down the old monastery buildings and built himself a mansion in the Gothic style next to the Abbey Church. Later he called on the services of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown, the leading landscape designer and gardener of the day, to improve his view. Brown had a reputation for not letting anything stand in the way of the successful execution of his plans, and elsewhere had moved whole communities to ensure that his grand designs were fully realised. Middleton was no exception; it was in the way, so it had to go.

In 1780 Joseph Damer built Milton Abbas, the Street as it is today, to house the residents of Middleton. The new village was built over the hill where it would not spoil his view. When the last resident of Middleton, a lawyer, refused to be evicted, Damer opened the sluice gates to the new dam and flooded him out. That last man later had his day in court with Damer – and won. However, a more remarkable survivor, the only structure from the old town, was Tregonwell’s Almshouses; being moved brick by brick, stone by stone together with its roof – this being moved for the third time as it dates from circa 1500, where it originally came from nobody knows - and re-erected in their original shape and Jacobean design, just as you see them today. The configuration at that time was six single room Almshouses with an outside “privy”, being three either side of the central Reading Rooms. The inscription over the central doorway reads: "Haec Sedes Senectatis Reaedificata Est Anno Domini 1779" ("These homes for the elderly were re-built in the Year of Our Lord 1779").

The Almshouses with their original six house layout, you can see 3 of the entrance doors below the Reading Rooms, which are in the centre of the building. The Almshouses now have four homes, two either side of the Reading Rooms.

In 1852 the estate was sold to Charles Joachim, Baron Hambro, a merchant banker. Hambro commissioned Sir George Gilbert Scott to restore the Abbey Church in 1865, saving the church from potential ruin. Through their eighty years at Milton Abbey the Hambros’ saw the trees and shrubs planted by Capability Brown grow to their full maturity, especially under the loving care of Sir Everard Hambro. In 1932 the estate was sold and divided up.

Following the sale of Milton Abbey estates in 1932, the responsibility for the Almshouses became vested with the Charity Commission.

And so - Sealed on the 27th September 1935:

In the matter of the Charity called or known as TREGONWELL’S ALMSHOUSES, in the Parish of MILTON ABBAS, in the County of DORSET, founded by Will of John Tregonwell dated 7th February 1647; and in the Matter of “The Charitable Trusts Acts, 1853 to 1925.”

The Board of Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, upon an application made to them on the 17th March 1934 by Lieutenant-Colonel EDMUND EATON, of 1 Ormonde Road, Branksome Park, Bournemouth, in the County of Southampton: being the Trustee or person acting in the administration of the above-mentioned Charity:

And after due notice of the intention to make this Order published according to the direction of the Board by being affixed to or near a principal door of the Parish Church of Milton Abbas and the Almshouses of the Charity on the 1st January 1935; and also sent through the post to

Sir CHARLES ERIC HAMBRO, KBE, of No 48 Upper Grosvenor Street, London, W1; being a person in whom the land belonging to the Charity is or may be vested and not being privy to the said application, at his last known place of abode in Great Britain or Ireland, on the 17th December 1934

And after due consideration of all objections made to the proposed Order and suggestions for the variation thereof:

Do hereby Order as follows: -

The subjoining Scheme is approved and established as the Scheme for the regulation of the Charity.

The Tregonwell Almshouse Trust was now empowered; the annual “rent charge” on Bagber Farm (£55/12/- in 1935), then owned by Sir Ernest Debenham, continued and was the principal income to maintain the Almshouses. The Residents paid Maintenance Contributions (MC) of 5/- per week. The day-to-day administration is now carried out by five Trustees and a Clerk, all of whom are volunteers.

The picture below shows the Almshouses as at September 2024 as viewed from the Church across the road.