English: Cranborne Manor, near to Cranborne, Dorset, Great Britain. One of the oldest inhabited houses in England, Cranborne has its origins in the C13, when it was a hunting lodge, frequented on many occasions by King John, a keen huntsman. By the late C16 when Cranborne Manor had become partly ruinous, it was purchased by Robert Cecil the great Tudor statesman and 1st Earl of Salisbury, who became Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth I in 1596. He built two Jacobean houses, one at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, the other at Cranborne, where many of the features of the old lodge were incorporated into the new building. During its construction King James I made his first visit to Cranborne in 1607, the house at that time being barely habitable. The present occupants are the Marquess and Marchioness of Salisbury, the Marquess being Viscount Cranborne, M.P. for South Dorset.