Garendon was founded by Robert de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Leicester, in 1133, and was probably a daughter house of Waverley Abbey in Surrey.

Monastic granges were then developed near the abbey, and at Burton on the Wolds, Dishley, Goadby, Ibstock, Ringolthorpe, Stanton Under Bardon and Welby in Leicestershire; at Costock and Rempstone, Nottinghamshire; and in the Peak District, in Derbyshire.

It was dissolved under Henry VIII, though not for charitable reasons, along with the smaller monasteries (those with annual incomes of under £200) in 1536, with the abbot being granted a pension of £30 a year.

[3] In 1684 the 2nd Duke of Buckingham sold the house to Sir Ambrose Phillipps (a successful lawyer) for £28,000.

Sir Ambrose and his son William did little to the house; his grandson, another Ambrose Phillipps, an accomplished gentleman architect inspired by his Grand Tour of France and Italy, started to change the house and the former abbey estate.

Beginning in 1734, Ambrose landscaped the surrounding parkland and built to his own designs,[4] several Palladian follies, which still exist.

However, the work remained unfinished in 1737 when Ambrose died childless; it was completed by the heir to the estate, his brother Samuel.

[3] Following Ambrose's death, the family was left with a difficult financial situation and needed to tighten its belt.

[3] In 1964 the family returned for a final time to Grace Dieu Manor, but sold that house within a decade.