Foundation

Garendon was founded in 1133 as a Cistercian Abbey by the Earl of Leicester. The Abbot had a seat in parliament for a time. The monastery was given various property around Loughborough during the middle ages until, by the 16th century it commanded land for miles around.

In 1536 the abbey church was demolished on the orders of Thomas Cromwell as part of his programme known as the dissolution of the monasteries. A visit made to the monastery the year before had brought charges of corruption and vice, typical of such inspections. The king, Henry VIII, gave the house and site of the abbey to the Earl of Rutland shortly afterwards. The Cistercian house was then destroyed to build the first Garendon Hall. Some of the stone can be detected in the walls surrounding the Park.

Dissolution

The Hall remained in the hands of the Earl of Rutland until 1632 when it was passed as a dowry to the royalist, the Duke of Buckingham. During the Civil War a legend emerged surrounding the large pool at the northern end of the Park. For four days the water became deeper and deeper red. Cattle refused to drink and great clots, that had the appearance of blood, rose and fell in the water. Local people decided that the four days of blood must represent the four years of civil war, and named the pool the Bloody Pool thereafter.

Some fifty years later, in 1683, it was purchased for £28,000 by Ambrose Phillips, a lawyer and Sergeant of Charles II, on behalf of Judge Jeffreys.  However, Phillips liked it so much he kept it for himself, but not before Buckingham had cut down some £5,000 worth of timber. Phillips improved the 420 acre Garendon Park by building and planting. These 17th Century plans have remained until today only an aspiration of the land owners.

Grandure!

It was Sir Ambrose Phillips' grandson, also named Ambrose, who built the monuments, including the 80 foot Obelisk, which adds splendour to the Park today. Built around 1735, the Triumphal Arch is a reproduction of the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum, the frieze depicts the Greek legend of the Metamorphosis of Actaeon. The Temple of Venus was inspired by the Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli. 

Garendon Hall was rebuilt during the latter half of the 18th Century by Ambrose's brother Samuel. The Park then passed, by marriage, into the March family, who adopted the name March Phillips, later adding the name de Lisle, from a previous marriage. The new Hall was a fine example of Palladian architecture with the facade being flanked by gateways based on a design by Inigo Jones.  Benjamin Disraeli visited Garendon shortly before writing, Coningsby (1844), his first political novel in which the Park is described. The family became Catholic and Ambrose Phillips established Mount St Bernard's Abbey for the Cistercian Order in 1835.