[1] 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.

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 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.

[3] The surrounding estate park of 400 acres features a serpentine lake, garden ornaments, a notable grotto and a 1000-yard avenue of beech.

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.

He rebuilt the parish church, and built and endowed alms houses for the relief of 11 senior citizens.

After Ashley died at the age of 76, on 13 January 1628, his wife Philippa went on to marry Carew Raleigh, son of Sir Walter Raleigh, while his daughter, Anne Ashley who married Sir John Cooper of Rockbourne, inherited the family estates at Wimborne St Giles.

The extensive estates that both inherited, consolidated the holdings of the Ashley and Cooper families in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, and Somerset.

John and Anne's first son and heir was born on 22 July 1621 at his grandfather's home at Wimborne St Giles.

[8] In later years, the 4th Earl of Shaftesbury preserved a note in the family papers, stating that Sir Anthony Ashley-Cooper was unaware of the marriage agreement established between his father and grandfather, when he chose the title of Baron Ashley after the Restoration.

He was very happy when he found out about the marriage and property agreement and amazed that he had unwittingly complied with this provision regardless of the lack of prior knowledge.

Anthony inherited the titles of his grandfather, father, and father-in-law, as well as St Giles House and the vast holdings of the Shaftesbury Estate.

At their death, Anthony inherited extensive estates, after consolidating the holdings of both the Ashley and Cooper families in Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset and Somerset.

[9] After the death of his parents, Ashley-Cooper and his siblings lived with Sir Daniel Norton, one of his Trustees, at Southwick, who was also a trusted friend of King Charles I.

When Sir Daniel Norton died in 1635, the siblings went to live with their uncle, Edward Tooker of New Sarum (now Salisbury).

The following year, in November, she gave birth to a stillborn son, just two weeks short of the scheduled delivery date.

A few days before this marriage, Shaftesbury entered in his diary: "I laid the first stone of my house at St Giles's.

It was here that the philosopher, John Locke resided from 1666 to 1688, while serving as Shaftesbury's personal physician, secretary, researcher, political operative, and friend.

The laws he helped to write produced the greatest measure of political and religious freedom in British North America (and, indeed, in much of the world).

He was the author of the Habeas Corpus Act whereby an accused man cannot be held indefinitely in prison without trial, an English law that passed into that of the United States.

Shaftesbury not only had his holdings in Carolina, but he had been part owner of a sugar plantation on Barbados, and a shareholder in the Hudson's Bay Company.

His eldest son, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 11th Earl of Shaftesbury, inherited the titles and estate but died soon afterwards in May 2005 of a heart attack at the age of 27.

[15] 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.

His achievement was recognised in 2015, when St Giles won the Historic Houses Association and Sotheby’s Restoration Award for that year.

[15] 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".

[17][18] 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.