Rebirth of an English Country House : St Giles House. This item is unavailable.Rebirth of an English Country House : St Giles House

An improbable mash-up of This Old House and Downton Abbey, the renovation of St. Giles house provides the reader with the real-life fantasy of going into dilapidated Georgian rooms and seeing them transform into exquisite spaces that honor the past while being suited to twenty-first-century living.

After being deserted for four decades, sixteenth-century English country house St. Giles House undergoes a thorough restoration from roof, structural walls, and interiors (including furnishings, decorative elements, and works of art) to landscape, lake, shell-lined grotto, and outbuildings. The history of the Ashley-Cooper family is described along with the evolution of the house and grounds, as well as the saga in bringing the grand house back to life.
The house is a Grade-I listed building on the National Heritage List for England, and lay abandoned in the countryside of Dorset for over four decades. With youthful energy and boundless creativity, the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury assembles a team to bring life and clarity back to the centuries-old family seat of the Ashley-Cooper family. After major structural repairs, English country-house splendor is brought to the house through the hands of some of the world's top artisans and craftspeople.

Nicholas Edmund Anthony Ashley-Cooper, the 12th Earl of Shaftesbury, is an English peer, landowner, and philanthropist. After an early career in music in New York City, and the untimely deaths of his father and brother, he inherited the earldom in 2005 and has since then overseen the restoration of the family seat, St Giles House.

Tim Knox is a British art historian and museum professional. Since 2013, he has been the director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, following an eight-year directorship of the Sir John Soane's Museum, London.

Justin Barton is a London-based photographer, whose commercial and editorial work encompasses portraiture, architecture, still life, interiors, and landscapes.