Wimborne St Giles

The Church of St Giles is the Church of England parish church for the village of Wimborne St Giles, Dorset. Originally founded in the 13th century and rebuilt several times over the ensuing centuries, the present church is a mixture of Georgian and Gothic Revival architecture. It is located at the start of the main driveway to St Giles House, the seat of the Earl of Shaftesbury, at the end of a row of Stuart-era almshouses.The church has been celebrated by several architectural historians, most notably Sir John Betjeman, who described St Giles as "a treasure-house of Comper work", referring to the restoration carried out on the church by Sir Ninian Comper between 1908 and 1910. The church building has been designated as Grade I listed on the National Heritage List for England, the highest possible rating.

St Giles House is located at Wimborne St Giles in East Dorset in England, just south of Cranborne Chase. It is the ancestral seat of the Ashley-Cooper family, which is headed by the Earl of Shaftesbury. The estate covers over 5,500 acres (22 km2).Built in 1651, the Grade I listed 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 17th-century 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.The surrounding estate park of 400 acres features a serpentine lake, garden ornaments, a notable grotto and a 1000-yard avenue of beech. The park is Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Wimborne St Giles Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: Wimborne All Saints (absorbed by Wimborne St Giles 1732) Wimborne St Giles West Woodyates (created 1858)

Knowlton Circles (also known as Knowlton Henges or Knowlton Rings) are a complex of henges and earthworks in Knowlton, Dorset, England. The henge enclosing Knowlton Church is the best known and best preserved, but there are at least two other henges in the vicinity as well as numerous round barrows.

Knowlton is a hamlet in the civil parish of Woodlands, Dorset, England. It is about 6 miles north of town Wimborne Minster, and about 1 mile south of the village of Wimborne St Giles. Its most recognizable features are a ruined Norman church built within a neolithic henge monument.

Cranborne Manor is a Grade I listed country house in Cranborne, Dorset, in southern England. The manor dates back to around 1207/8, and was originally a hunting lodge. It was re-modelled for The 1st Earl of Salisbury in the early 17th century. The main seat of the earls and marquesses of Salisbury is Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, and Cranborne Manor is often the home of the heir to the title, who uses the courtesy title Viscount Cranborne.

Monkton Up Wimborne Hundred or Up Wimborne Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: Chettle Cranborne (part) Tarrant MonktonThe name Monkton Up Wimborne is applied on modern maps to a rural area north-west of Wimborne St Giles.

Cranborne Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: Ashmore Belchalwell (divided between Okeford Fitzpaine and Fifehead Neville 1884) Cranborne (part) East Woodyates (created 1858) Edmondsham (part) Farnham Hampreston (part; entire from the 1860s, when the other part was transferred from Hampshire) Pentridge Shillingstone Tarrant Gunville Tarrant Rushton Tollard Royal (divided between Dorset and Wiltshire until the 1880s, when the Dorset part was transferred to Wiltshire) Turnworth West Parley Witchampton(Alderholt and Verwood were created from Cranborne in 1894)

Cranborne is a village in East Dorset, England. At the 2011 census, the parish had a population of 779, remaining unchanged from 2001. The appropriate electoral ward is called 'Crane'. This ward includes Wimborne St. Giles in the west and south to Woodlands. The total population of this ward at the 2011 census was 2,189.Once a very small, intensely agricultural market town, the village is on chalk downland called Cranborne Chase, part of a large expanse of chalk in southern England which includes the nearby Salisbury Plain and Dorset Downs.

Woodlands is a village and civil parish in the East Dorset district of Dorset, South-West England. It is five miles (8 km) north of Wimborne Minster. The village is home to the Church of the Ascension which is a Grade II listed building. In 2001, the parish had a population of 544 but in 2011 the number had fallen to 522.

Horton is a village in East Dorset, England, situated on the boundary between the chalk downland of Cranborne Chase and the Dorset Heaths, and ten miles north of Poole. The village has a population of 515 (2001).

Horton Priory was a priory at Horton in Dorset, England. It was founded as a Benedictine abbey around 970 by Ordgar, Earl of Devon, or his son, Ordulph, and dedicated to Saint Olfrida, Wilfrida or Wulfthryth, the mother of Saint Edith of Wilton by King Edgar the Peaceful. In the early twelfth century it was reduced to priory status by Roger, bishop of Salisbury and made dependent on Sherborne Abbey.At the Dissolution in 1539 Sherborne Abbey was surrendered to the king, and in 1547 it was granted to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. On Somerset's attainder it was granted to William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke. The present Horton parish church, St Olfrida, was built on the site of the priory in the 18th century. No traces of the original priory remain.