Knowlton, Dorset

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.

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.

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.

Wimborne St Giles is a village and civil parish in east Dorset, England, on Cranborne Chase, 7 miles (11 km) north of Wimborne Minster and 12 miles (19 km) north of Poole. The village lies within the Shaftesbury estate, owned by the Earl of Shaftesbury. A tributary of the River Allen, formerly known as the Wimborne, snakes its way through the village.The village of St Giles was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. Wimborne St Giles was established in 1733, when the St Giles and All Hallows parishes were merged at the request of Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Earl of Shaftesbury. In 2001 the population was 366, served by the village hall, post office, parish church, and a primary school. Recreational enterprises include commercial shooting, a trout farm, and fly fishing on the River Allen. The village is largely agricultural, with residents generally commuting to nearby cities and towns for employment.

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.

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).

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)

All Saints' Church is a Church of England church in Chalbury, Dorset, England. It has 13th-century origins, with later alterations and additions, and many 18th-century furnishings. The church is a Grade I listed building. In the churchyard, an early 19th-century table tomb of the Long family is Grade II listed.

Chalbury is a village in the English county of Dorset. It lies on the southern edge of Cranborne Chase within the East Dorset administrative district of the county, four miles north of Wimborne Minster and four miles west of Verwood. The village is sited on Chalbury Hill, the view from which has been described as "one of the most fascinating in the county". The Dorset broadcaster Ralph Wightman wrote of the hill and its view: "Here there is a hill which is only three hundred feet high but which manages to give a wonderful view over woodland, heath, fertile chalk and the distant Isle of Wight. This feeling of immense space seen from relatively small hills is a blessed peculiarity of Dorset."The village has a population of 140 (2001). Journalist Mary Frances Billington was born at Chalbury in 1862, while her father was the rector at All Saints' Church.

Gussage All Saints is a village and parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It nestles within the East Dorset administrative district of the county, about 8 miles north-east of the town of Blandford Forum. It is sited by the side of a small stream in a shallow valley on the lower dip slope of Cranborne Chase. Ackling Dyke, a disused Roman road, crosses the valley to the northwest, and forms the parish boundary at that point. The village church dates mostly from the early 14th century. Since 2001 The Ecclesiastical Parish of Gussage All Saints has been one of ten Ecclesiastical Parishes which form ‘The Chase Benefice’ under its first incumbent the Reverend Dr Michael Foster. The other Parishes are Gussage St Michael, Farnham, Chettle, Tarrant Gunville, Tarrant Hinton, Tarrant Monkton, Tarrant Rushton, Tarrant Keyneston, and Tollard Royal in Wiltshire. To the south of the village lies an Iron Age settlement excavated in 1972 by Dr G. J. Wainwright, of the Department of the Environment. The settlement is formed by an enclosure that is roughly circular in plan and some 3 acres in extent, with a single entrance in the east defined by two pairs of flanking antennae ditches.

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.

Hinton Martell (also known as Hinton Martel) is a village and former civil parish, now in the civil parish of Hinton, in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies within the East Dorset administrative district of the county, three miles north of the town of Wimborne Minster. In the 2001 Census the parish had a population of 368. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2015 and merged with Hinton Parva to form Hinton.Hinton Martell was once known as Hinetone, the village of the monks. It was owned at this time by Eudo Martel, a Frenchman whose surname meant hammer. The village has a church, thatched cottages, and a rather unusual fountain. The current fountain is a replacement for an original which was built low for sheep to drink from. In 1905 in his Highways and Byways in Dorset, Sir Frederick Treves called the original "a fountain as may be found in a suburban tea garden or in front of a gaudy Italian villa." He continues, "The fountain, of painted metal, tawdry and flimsy, represents a boy standing in one dish while he holds another on his head. No unhappy detail is spared: the ambitious pedestal, the three impossible dolphins, and the paltry squirt of water, are all here. How this cafe chantant ornament has found its way into a modest and secluded hamlet there is no evidence to show". The fountain was irreparably damaged in the severe winter of 1963. It was replaced, and was revealed in 1965 by Miss Anne Sidney of Poole, the 'Miss World' winner of that year.