Monument record MDO5602 - St Giles' Park, Wimborne St Giles

Landscaped parkland and pleasure grounds developed between the late seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, retaining significant mid eighteenth century landscape structures.

C17/C18 parkland, c.170ha, with notable C18 landscape features. Walled kitchen garden to north east of stable. Little known of garden or park development before 1672 when an estate plan indicates garden areas and western end of the double avenue which runs for 1300m eastwards. Landscaping was not effected until mid-C18, for 4th Earl of Shaftesbury. (For temple see SU 01 SW 63; archway see SU 01 SW 61; grotto see SU 01 SW 62; landscape earthworks see SU 01 SW 32; gazebo see SU 01 SW 22). [Full topographical description] Additional references, not consulted. (a)-(g) <11> The c.230ha site comprises some 30ha of gardens and pleasure grounds, and c.200ha of parkland, plantations and ornamental drives. A circuit of carriage drives extend to the north-west of the house and park. It is a particularly important multi-phased designed landscape, incorporating pleasure grounds and parkland, first developed in the late seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth century, for a very important country house of exceptional interest. The site has belonged to the ancestors of the Earl of Shaftesbury since the early fifteenth century. The present house, incorporating earlier fabric, was begun in 1651 for Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. It was extended in 1672, in 1740-44, and again in 1854.There was further remodelling in 1886 and the house was reduced in the 1970s. The original garden was significantly altered by the fourth Earl of Shaftesbury in the 1740s and included a serpentine ‘river’ with an island on which stood a castle, a castellated gateway, a Chinese bridge, a stone bridge, a circular pavilion dedicated to Shakespeare, and other features (Oswald, 1959). A grotto was constructed in 1751-3). In the early twentieth century, a formal sunken garden was created east of the house, while the kitchen garden was converted into an ornamental flower and fruit garden. <12>

Record last edited

May 11 2023 4:33PM