Wimborne, Dorset - Kingston Lacy House - Plastichrome postcard c.1960s

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Kingston Lacy is a country house and estate near Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England. It was for many years the family seat of the Bankes family who lived nearby at Corfe Castle until its destruction in the English Civil War after its incumbent owners, Sir John Bankes and Dame Mary, had remained loyal to Charles I.

The house was built between 1663 and 1665 by Ralph Bankes, son of Sir John Bankes, to a design by the architect Sir Roger Pratt. It is a rectangular building with two main storeys, attics and basement, modelled on Chevening in Kent. The gardens and parkland were laid down at the same time, including some of the specimen trees that remain today. Various additions and alterations were made to the house over the years and the estate remained in the ownership of the Bankes family from the 17th to the late 20th century.

The house was designated as a Grade I listed building in 1958 and the park and gardens are included in the National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens at Grade II. The house was bequeathed to the National Trust upon the death in 1982 of Henry John Ralph Bankes, along with Corfe Castle. The house and gardens are open to the public.

The Kingston Lacy estate originally formed part of a royal estate within the manor of Wimborne. The original house stood to the north of the current house. It was built in the medieval period and was used as a hunting lodge in connection with the deer park to its northwest. Leased to those who found favour with the monarch, lessees included the de Lacys, Earls of Lincoln, who held it in addition to estates at Shapwick and Blandford Forum. In the 15th century the property was leased to John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, whose daughter Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of King Henry VII, was brought up at Kingston Lacy.^[2]

By the 16th century the house was in ruins. In 1603 King James I gave the lands to Sir Charles Blount. In 1636, his son sold the estate to Sir John Bankes, who had been appointed attorney general to King Charles I in 1634.^[3] Sir John was born in Cumberland, but through his extensive legal works had acquired sufficient funds to purchase the Corfe estate. During the Civil War, the Bankes family remained loyal to the crown; Sir John died at Oxford in December 1644, the King having retired there for the winter. Left to fend for herself during two sieges, his wife Mary Bankes defended Corfe Castle, but it eventually fell to the Parliamentary forces. In March 1645 Parliament voted to slight the castle, and it was left in its present ruinous state.^[2] Although deprived of their castle, the Bankes family owned some 8,000 acres (3,200 ha) of the surrounding Dorset countryside and coastline.^[1] The masonry from the destroyed castle was used by local villagers to rebuild their own residences.^[4]

Sir Ralph died in 1677, and his widow let the house to the Duke of Ormonde from 1686 and 1688. John Bankes the Elder regained the property in 1693, and with his wife Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Parker of Honington Hall, completed most of his father's original development plan. In 1772 the house passed to his second son Henry who remodelled it, built a servants' wing, and enclosed the parkland for better agricultural management.^[2]