Athelhampton House

Athelhampton House
Dorset
Athelhampton House
Location
Grid reference:	SY77069428
Location:	50°44’52"N, 2°19’35"W
Village:	Athelhampton
History
	Built 1493
For:	Sir William Martyn
	Country house
Information
Owned by:	Giles Keating
Website:	https://www.athelhampton.com/

Athelhampton House is a grand 15th-century country house standing to the east of Athelhampton in Dorset, among 160 acres of parkland.

The house is a Grade I listed building. The gardens are Grade I listed on the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. The owner opens the house for public visits.

History

Sir William Martyn had the current Great Hall built in about 1493. A West Wing and Gatehouse were added in 1550, but in 1862 the Gatehouse was demolished.

Sir William's grandson, Nicholas Martyn, Sheriff of Dorset in 1581, married Margaret, sister to and a co-heiress of Nicholas Wadham, co-founder with his wife Dorothy of Wadham College, Oxford. Being childless, the three sisters of Nicholas Wadham were his co-heiresses. The couple's monumental brass, showing them kneeling between an escutcheon with the ancient arms of FitzMartin (Argent, two bars gules) impaling Wadham survives in St. Mary's Church, Puddletown. The three sons who predeceased them kneel behind their father. To the right is Nicholas Martyn's wife, Margaret Wadham, behind who kneel their seven daughters, of whom only four survived as co-heiresses. Among the fine stained glass both at Athelhampton and at St. Mary's Church, Puddletown are the Arms of Wadham (Gules, a chevron between three roses argent).

Sir Robert Long bought Athelhampton House in 1665 from Sir Ralph Bankes. In 1684 an attempt was made by the Court of Chancery to sequester the estate from the then owner, James Long Esquire (son of Sir James Long, 2nd Baronet), to recover a debt, but this seems to have been unsuccessful. The estate passed down through the Long family to William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley (Viscount Wellesley, later 5th Earl of Mornington), who sold it in 1848 to George Wood. In 1891, the house was acquired by the antiquarian Alfred de Lafontaine, who carried out restoration to the interior and added the North Wing in 1920–21.

The River Piddle at Athelhampton House

At the same time de Lafontaine engaged Inigo Thomas to create one of Britain's great gardens as a series of "outdoor rooms" inspired by the Renaissance. Twenty acres of formal gardens are encircled by the River Piddle, and consist of eight walled gardens with numerous fountains and pavilions, plus a balustraded terrace, statues, obelisks and vistas through gate piers. Great Court contains 12 giant yew pyramids set around the pool by the great terrace. The lawn to the west has an early 16th-century circular dovecote, and the south terrace features a vast Magnolia grandiflora and a Banksian rose. Pear trees cover the old walls and support roses and Clematis.

The house was regularly visited by Thomas Hardy; his father was a stonemason and worked on the house. It was during this time that Hardy painted a watercolour of the south front including the gatehouse. Hardy set the poem "The Dame of Athelhall" at the house and his "The Children and Sir Nameless" refers to the Martyn tombs in the Athelhampton Aisle at St Mary's in neighbouring Puddletown.

Athelhampton has been owned by three generations of the Cooke family. The property was acquired by Robert Victor Cooke in 1957, who restored the manor; in 1966, he transferred ownership to his son Robert Cooke. In 1995, the property was inherited by Patrick Cooke who arranged for additional restoration and extension of the gardens.

A serious fire in late 1992 destroyed most of the attic and first floor of the south wing. Investigation after the fire indicated that the layout of the rooms on the first floor, built as a service wing, had been altered since the building's inception. A life-size sketch of a classical fireplace was also revealed on the plasterwork behind panelling over an existing fireplace.

In 2019, after 62 years of ownership by the family, Patrick Cooke retired and the house and estate were listed for sale. Until that time, the house had been opened to the public all year round. In October 2019, the contents were sold at auction by the Cooke family after the property had been purchased in July by economist Giles Keating. The new owner subsequently reopened the house and garden to the public.

Film location

Athelhampton House and its estate have appeared in a number of film and television productions, including:

• Sleuth (1972 film)
• Doctor Who:
  • The Seeds of Doom (serial, 1976) using the house and gardens.
  • The Unicorn and the Wasp (2008)
• From Time to Time (2009) a children's film by Julian Fellowes based on The Chimneys of Green Knowe (1958)

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Athelhampton House)

• Athelhampton House