St Giles House
| St Giles House | |
| Dorset | |
|---|---|
 St Giles House | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SU03221159 |
| Location: | 50°54’13"N, 1°57’20"W |
| Village: | Wimborne St Giles |
| History | |
| Built 1651 | |
| Country house | |
| Renaissance | |
| Information | |
| Owned by: | The Earl of Shaftesbury |
| Website: | shaftesburyestates.com |
St Giles House is a grand country house in eastern Dorset. It is the ancestral seat of the Earls of Shaftesbury, of the Ashley-Cooper family. Built in 1651, the house stands in a vast park through which the River Allen flows, feeding a seven-acre lake as it winds its way towards the small parish village of Wimborne St Giles.
The estate lies just south of Cranborne Chase and covers over 5,500 acres.
The house is a Grade I listed building[1] and the park is Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.[2]
St Giles House is a low, quadrangular building. Although the name of the architect is not known, the influence of Inigo Jones is obvious in the Renaissance north and east fronts with their Classical façades. The original plan of the house called for a square courtyard, to which was added two large ground floor rooms, with additional rooms on the second and third floors.
The house was once completely crenellated along the edge of the parapet (or shorter walls), however most of these fortifications were removed in the 19th century. The east front, with its seven bays, remains much the same today.[3]
The surrounding estate park of 400 acres features a serpentine lake, garden ornaments, a notable grotto and a 1000-yard avenue of beech.
Contents
Ashley family
The Ashley family were originally from Wiltshire, where they had owned the manor of Ashley since the 11th century. The first ancestor to reside in Wimborne St Giles was Robert Ashley (born c. 1415); he was the fifth great grandfather of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.[4][5]
Robert Ashley acquired a large family manor in Wimborne St Giles through his marriage to Egidia Hamelyn, daughter of Sir John Hamelyn. Ashley and his two immediate successors, Edmund Ashley (born c. 1440), and Hugh Ashley (born c. 1465) flourished under King Henry IV.
Sir Anthony Ashley, born in 1551, inherited the family estates at Wimborne St Giles on his cousin's death. At this time, he became a generous benefactor of the parish. He rebuilt the parish church, and built and endowed alms houses for the relief of eleven senior citizens. Through his second marriage, with the 19-year-old Philippa Sheldon, Ashley cemented a political alliance with the most powerful man at court: his bride was the sister-in-law of Christopher Villiers, 1st Earl of Anglesey, brother of George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, a favoured courtier of King Charles I. On 3 July 1622, Ashley was created baronet of Wimborne St Giles.
Ashley chose a tutor for his first grandson and eventual heir, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, ensuring a Puritan upbringing. This grandchild (son of Anthony Ashley's daughter and her husband Sir John Cooper) was, through the joint inheritances of his parents, the founder of one of the wealthiest families in Britain. He was later created 1st Earl of Shaftesbury.
The 1st Earl of Shaftesbury was a prominent politician during the time of Oliver Cromwell, but a pronounced liberal opposed to religious intolerance. He was one of the Lord Proprietor of the Carolina colonies and arranged for his friend and secretary, the philosopher John Locke, to draw up the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina, the laws for the new province, containing the greatest measure of political and religious freedom in British North America. He was also part owner of a sugar plantation on Barbados and a shareholder in the Hudson's Bay Company, and in 1672, King Charles II appointed Shaftesbury as Lord Chancellor of England.
The 7th Earl of Shaftesbury was a prominent politician, social reformer and philanthropist. He was known as the reforming Lord Shaftesbury in the 19th century, who fought for the abolition of slavery.
In 2004, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 10th Earl of Shaftesbury was murdered by his wife and brother-in-law. They were convicted of the crime in 2007, two years after the Earl's body was found dismembered in the French Alps. His eldest son succeeded but died the next year of a heart attack at the age of 27, the inheritance falling to his younger brother, Nicholas.
Recent history
During the First World War, part of St Giles house was used as a hospital, and in the Second World War it was requisitioned and used as a school, the 9th Earl and family moving to an apartment within the house. In 1954 the burden of running the house became too great and the family retreated to the dower house, known as Mainsail Haul, located near the centre of Wimborne St Giles. St Giles was left largely unoccupied apart from one wing used as the estate office. With the intention of returning St Giles to its original design, in 1973 the 10th Earl demolished the south-west wing and the kitchen wing, as well as the Victorian tower.[6] A joinery business was operated from the basement – during the 10th Earl's tenure, the estate woodlands were restored and a million trees were planted.
However, by 2001 St Giles House was recorded on the Register of Buildings at Risk, indicating its neglect and decay.
Between 2003 and 2017, a long-term interdisciplinary study was undertaken on the fabric of St Giles House and its estate. This involved documentary research and investigation, the findings from which has informed the ongoing restoration work.[7]
Following his inheritance of the estate in 2005, the 12th Earl embarked on an ambitious restoration of the House and park. His achievement was recognised in 2015, when St Giles won the Historic Houses Association and Sotheby’s Restoration Award for that year. The family have returned to live in St Giles, residing in an apartment in one wing.[6]
Garden grotto and estate park
The garden grotto, c. 1751–53 and the estate park itself are both recorded on the Register as a Grade II* listed buildings. The Grade II* list records buildings (and parks and gardens) that are "particularly important [with] more than special interest".
Built of flint and rubble with a tiled and slated roof, the grotto is positioned so that the structure appears to be the source of a spring feeding the ornamental lake. The ante-chamber is lined with flints, fossils and minerals, and the main chamber has walls lined with shells, fossils, coral and stone. Some of the shells were sent from the Caribbean by the father of William Thomas Beckford of Fonthill. Rather than just a shell room, the grotto was an attempt to create a room that felt underwater, and is considered a remarkable example of antique surrealism.[8][9][10] After falling into decay, it was restored by the 12th Earl.
The Riding House is an early 17th century range set on the southern side of the home farm complex near St Giles House. Investigations by Historic England in 2016 discovered that the building was constructed as a stable block in 1616-18. Historically, the building had been misidentified as a riding house.[11]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about St Giles House) |
References
- ↑ National Heritage List 1120129: St Giles House
- ↑ National Heritage List 1000723: St Giles' House (Register of Historic Parks and Gardens)
- ↑ Cattell, J; Barson, S; St Giles's House, Wimborne, St Giles, Dorset: Historic England Research Report 127/2003
- ↑ Timbs, John; and Alexander Gunn. Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales – Their Legendary Lore and Popular History, Read Books, 2006, pp. 444–446. ISBN 978-1-84664-342-2
- ↑ Burke, John. A genealogical and heraldic History of the extinct and dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland: By John and John Bern. Burke, John Russ Smith, p 18, 1844. ISBN 978-0-8063-0739-8
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 'The 12th Earl of Shaftesbury Relays a Family's History Through Its House': Mitchell Owens in the Architectural Digest 12 December 2018
- ↑ Bailiff, I K; Bayliss, A; Bridge, M C; Bronk Ramsey, C; Cattell, J; Dunbar, E; Tyers, C. "St Giles House and the ‘Riding House’, Wimborne St Giles, Dorset: Scientific Dating and Bayesian Chronological Modelling. Historic England Research Report 69/2017". https://research.historicengland.org.uk/Report.aspx?i=15863&ru=/Results.aspx?p=1&n=10&rn=69&ry=2017&ns=1.
- ↑ RCHM, Dorset, vol V, p 97
- ↑ Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Dorset, 1972 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09598-2page 473
- ↑ Jones, B, Follies and Grottoes, 1953, p 47-9
- ↑ Lane, R (2016). "The Riding House, St Giles House, Wimborne St Giles, Dorset: Building Investigation. Historic England Research Report 1/2016". https://research.historicengland.org.uk/Report.aspx?i=15411&ru=/Results.aspx?n=10&t=giles&p=2.
Books
- Betjeman, J., 'Sir John Betjeman's guide to English parish churches, revised and updated by Nigel Kerr' (HarperCollins, 1993) p. 186.
- Dorset Historic Churches Trust, Dorset Churches. Dorchester: DHCT, 1988, p. 58.
- Hope, M., Dorset. In: Humphrey, S.C., ed., Blue guide: churches and chapels of southern England (Norton, 1991) pp. 206–208.
- Hutchins, J.: 'The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset' 3rd ed., edited by W. Shipp and J.W. Hodson, (1861-1873)
- Mee, Arthur: The King's England: Dorset (Hodder & Stoughton)
- Nikolaus Pevsner: The Buildings of England: Dorset, 1972 Penguin Books ISBN 978-0-300-09598-2
- Wimborne St Giles: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 5, pages 92-104
