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Athelhampton (also known as Admiston or Adminston) is a settlement in the
civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
of Athelhampton and Puddletown, in
Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
, England, situated approximately east of Dorchester. It consists of a
manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...
and a former
Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...
.
Dorset County Council Dorset County Council was the county council of Dorset in England. It was created in 1889 and abolished in 2019. Throughout its existence, the council was based in Dorchester. Bournemouth and Poole were made independent from the county counci ...
's 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of the civil parish is 30. On 1 April 2024 the parish was abolished and merged with
Puddletown Puddletown is a village in the civil parish of Athelhampton and Puddletown, in Dorset, England. It is situated by the River Piddle, from which it derives its name, about northeast of the county town Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. Its earlier ...
to form "Athelhampton and Puddletown".


Manor

The
Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
records that in 1086 the
Bishop of Salisbury The Bishop of Salisbury is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. The Episcopal see, see is in the Salisbur ...
, with Odbold as tenant, held the manor, then called ''Pidele''. The name ''Aethelhelm'' appears in the 13th century, when Athelhampton belonged to the de Loundres family. In 1350 Richard Martyn married the de Pydele heiress, and their descendant Sir William Martin received licence to enclose of land to form a deer park and a licence to fortify the manor.


Athelhampton Hall

The
hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...
is a
Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
15th-century
country house image:Blenheim - Blenheim Palace - 20210417125239.jpg, 300px, Blenheim Palace - Oxfordshire An English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a Townhou ...
retaining much of its original Tudor character including a magnificent Great Hall with fine hammerbeam roof, and a recently restored Elizabethan Kitchen with a magnificent fireplace. It is surrounded by some 20 acres of gardens originally designed by Inigo Thomas in the 1890s, which are Grade I listed on the
Register of Historic Parks and Gardens #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England #REDIRECT Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England {{R from move ...
{{R from move ...
. The house and gardens are privately owned but are open for public visits almost all of the year, and the property is a member of the
Historic Houses Association Historic Houses (formerly, and still for legal purposes, known as the Historic Houses Association or HHA) is a not-for-profit organisation that represents well over a thousand independently owned historic English country house, country houses, ...
. Sir William Martyn had the current Great Hall built in about 1485. A West Wing was added in the middle of the next century, forming an attractive oblique angle to the older building that marks it out from other houses of the same era. A gatehouse (demolished in 1862) and a large new kitchen to the rear were added around the same time. Sir William's grandson Robert Martyn married Elizabeth Kelway and when he died, she took as her second husband Sir John Tregonwell, who had acquired significant wealth from the dissolution of the monasteries, which may have helped fund the new works, with his arms appearing in the stained glass of the new wing. The next generation also brought wealth to the family through a marriage alliance, with Sir William Martyn's great-grandson Sir Nicholas Martyn (who was Sheriff of Dorset in 1581) marrying Margaret, sister to and a co-heiress of
Nicholas Wadham Nicholas Wadham may refer to: * Nicholas Wadham (1531–1609), co-founder of Wadham College, Oxford * Nicholas Wadham (1472–1542), English landowner, courtier and politician {{hndis, Wadham, Nicholas ...
(co-founder with his wife
Dorothy Dorothy may refer to: *Dorothy (given name), a list of people with that name. Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Dorothy'' (TV series), 1979 American TV series * Dorothy Mills, a 2008 French movie, sometimes titled simply ''Dorot ...
of
Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College ( ) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street, Oxford, Broad Street and Parks Road ...
, and who being childless had his three sisters as co-heiresses, at least in their issue). Sir Nicholas Martyn and Lady Margaret's
monumental brass A monumental brass is a type of engraved church monument, sepulchral memorial once found through Western Europe, which in the 13th century began to partially take the place of three-dimensional church monument, monuments and effigy, effigies carve ...
, showing them kneeling between an escutcheon with the ancient arms of
FitzMartin FitzMartin or Fitz Martin was the surname of a Normans, Norman family based in England and Wales between 1085 and 1342. Earliest Generations The earliest well-documented progenitor of this family was Robert fitz Martin, Robert Lords of Cemais, ...
or Martyn (Argent, two bars gules) impaling Wadham survives in St. Mary's Church,
Puddletown Puddletown is a village in the civil parish of Athelhampton and Puddletown, in Dorset, England. It is situated by the River Piddle, from which it derives its name, about northeast of the county town Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. Its earlier ...
. The three sons who predeceased them kneel behind their father. To the right, kneeling behind their mother, are their seven daughters, of whom four survived as co-heiresses. The Great Hall at Athelhampton contains fine stained glass, with the eight panels in the fine Oriel Window each showing the Martyn arms impaled with the various arms of families with whom they formed marriage alliances, including the Kelways and the Wadhams. Each of the four Martyn daughters married; the eldest, Elizabeth, initially to Henry Brune and subsequently to Thomas Hanham (Hamon); Jane initially to Chidiock Tichborne (executed as one of the Babington plotters in 1586) and then to Tristram Dillington and finally Edward Richards; Frances to Thomas White, and the youngest, Anne, to Anthony Floyer. When Sir Nicholas died in 1596, ownership of the house and park was initially divided among them in four parts, with the shares of the elder three daughters being consolidated in the early seventeenth century into a single unit representing three-quarters, while Anne's quarter-share remained in the ownership of her descendants in the Floyer family until the mid nineteenth century. Sir Robert Long bought the three-quarters share in 1665 from Sir Ralph Bankes. Ownership passed to James Long Esquire (son of
Sir James Long, 2nd Baronet Sir James Long, 2nd Baronet (c. 1617 – 22 January 1692) was an English politician and Royalist soldier. Born at South Wraxall, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, the son of Sir Walter Long and Anne Ley (daughter of James Ley, 1st Earl of Marlbor ...
). In 1684 an attempt was made by Mary Keightley in the
Court of Chancery The Court of Chancery was a court of equity in England and Wales that followed a set of loose rules to avoid a slow pace of change and possible harshness (or "inequity") of the Common law#History, common law. The Chancery had jurisdiction over ...
to sequester this share of the estate from him to recover a debt, however, after the death of his first wife, he married the plaintiff, and the case seems to have been resolved. Mary Keightley was aunt, by marriage, of
Queen Mary II Mary II (30 April 1662 – 28 December 1694) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland with her husband, King William III and II, from 1689 until her death in 1694. She was also Princess of Orange following her marriage on 4 November 1677 ...
and Queen Anne, and there is a report that a meeting in preparation for the
Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Revolution of 1688, was the deposition of James II and VII, James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II, Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange ...
, which brought Mary II and her husband William to the throne, took place on the West Wing staircase at Athelhampton. The three-quarter share of the estate passed down through the Long family to Catherine Tylney-Long, a wealthy early seventeenth-century heiress courted by the Prince of Wales, who later married
William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington (22 June 1788 – 1 July 1857) was an Anglo-Irish nobleman notorious for his dissipated style of living. Ancestry One of his great-grandfathers was Henry Colley (died 1719), Henry Colle ...
. After her death, her husband was involved in a court battle for custody of their children which, unusually for the time, he lost. However, he did acquire control of the three-quarter share of Athelhampton, despite provisions in his wife's will to prevent this, and later sold it in 1848 to its tenant farmer George Wood, who also acquired the remaining one-quarter share from the Floyer family, thus bringing the estate back into single ownership for the first time in 250 years. In 1890, the house and a limited area of land, but not the larger part of the surrounding farmland, was acquired by the antiquarian Alfred de Lafontaine. In the preceding three hundred years, with the split and often absent ownership, the house had been used as a farmhouse and was in partial disrepair, with farm buildings close to it. However, this meant that it had not seen the modernisation applied to many other country houses in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, and retained many original Tudor characteristics including an almost unaltered facade (though the gatehouse had been near collapse and was demolished by the Woods). Lafontaine was an early member of the
Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the Victorian restoration, destructive 'restoration' of ancient bu ...
and an acquaintance of
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
, a frequent visitor to the house who following his early career as an architect had become an advocate of sympathetic restoration of older buildings. Lafontaine followed this approach, cleaning and repairing rather than altering, and where he installed modern amenities he did so sensitively, with trench heating under elegant iron grilles in the historic rooms. Hardy's association with the house had begun as a teenager when his father was a stonemason who worked on the house., at which time he painted a watercolour of the south front including the gatehouse. His description of Bathsheba's farmhouse in Far From the Madding Crowd fits Athelhampton closely (though he was also inspired by nearby Waterston house); he 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 Puddletown is a village in the civil parish of Athelhampton and Puddletown, in Dorset, England. It is situated by the River Piddle, from which it derives its name, about northeast of the county town Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. Its earlier ...
. Lafontaine engaged Inigo Thomas to create a series of "outdoor rooms," inspired by Thomas' extensive researches into gardens from the Elizabethan era onwards and his travels in Europe, and fulfilling his vision that house and garden should reflect one another in a harmonious whole. Lafontaine put the house up for sale in 1916 and two years later it was purchased by the Cochrane family, who built the current North Wing in 1920–21 on the site of earlier structures. From 1930, it was owned by the Hon Mrs Esmond ("Peggy") Harmsworth, at that time wife of Esmond Harmsworth (later 2nd Viscount Rothermere). During her time at Athelhampton, visitors included Noel
Coward Cowardice is a characteristic wherein excessive fear prevents an individual from taking a risk or facing danger. It is the opposite of courage. As a label, "cowardice" indicates a failure of character in the face of a challenge. One who succumb ...
and
Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Douglas Elton Fairbanks Jr. (December 9, 1909 – May 7, 2000) was an American actor, producer, and decorated naval officer of World War II. He is best-known for starring in such films as '' The Prisoner of Zenda'' (1937), '' Gunga Din'' (1939), ...
In 1949 it was purchased by Rodney Philipps, who lived there with his wife Marika and her mother Marevna, the Russian-French painter who produced a number of paintings of Athelhampton at this time. In 1957, Athelhampton was acquired by Robert Victor Cooke, and remained in the ownership of the Cooke family for three generations in all, with his son Robert Cooke taking over in 1966 and Patrick Cooke inheriting it in 1995. The Cooke family carried out important restoration work and extension of the gardens,One of the most incredible privately-owned homes in Britain has come to the market
/ref> as well as opening the house and gardens to regular public access for the first time. A serious fire in 1992 destroyed most of the attic and first floor of the east 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 was purchased by economist and author Giles Keating, who has undertaken further restoration. The magnificent Elizabethan kitchen, whose range had been bricked in and concealed behind modern units, has been restored and opened to the public for the first time, and many other historic rooms previously closed are now available to visit, with new lighting installed for the hammerbeam roof in the Great Hall. Furniture, lighting, soft furnishings and finishes include work by one of the country's last traditional weavers and by local blacksmiths, stonemasons and joiners, alongside items from the Tudor and later periods. Concealed solar panels and batteries, powering heat pumps, have allowed the removal of gas and oil and the estate now has net zero carbon emissions from current energy usage. The house and gardens are open to the public almost all the year.


Gardens at Athelhampton House

The heart of the gardens at Athelhampton was designed and built by Inigo Thomas in 1891–1892, commissioned by Lafontaine. Thomas had studied architecture with Charles Robert Ashbee and had extensively researched English garden design from the Elizabethan era onwards. Around the time he worked on Athelhampton, he undertook a series of study tours across Britain and continental Europe in which he produced illustrations of landscapes, gardens and architecture some of which were used in the 1892 book ''The Formal Garden in England''. At Athelhampton, he drew these influences together in a way that he later described in a 1900 article, in which he argued that the three chief characteristics of old gardens were enclosure, subdivision, and change of level: "As you have the dining room, library and gallery, so out of doors there was one court for guests to alight in, another for flowers and a third for the lawn game of the period." This vision is apparent to modern visitor walking up the main drive: ahead of them is an area in front of the house with a vast ''
Magnolia ''Magnolia'' is a large genus of about 210 to 340The number of species in the genus ''Magnolia'' depends on the taxonomic view that one takes up. Recent molecular and morphological research shows that former genera ''Talauma'', ''Dugandiodendr ...
grandiflora'' and a Banksian rose, which is "the court for guests to arrive in;" to their right is the circular Coruna garden which is both a space "for flowers" and an access to further such spaces; while to their left is the West Lawn, perfect for games such as croquet. In a speech to the Art Workers Guild in 1896, published in the Gardener's Magazine and the Journal of the Society of Arts as ''The Garden in Relation to the House'', Thomas explained how the Coruna, an intimate circular space enclosed by a stone wall topped with obelisks and with four gateways to adjacent 'outdoor rooms,' formed the point of intersection of two of the principal axes of his design. A visitor today standing in the Coruna can see the vistas created by these axes: the first running roughly north–south and linking the Great Court with its 12 giant
yew Yew is a common name given to various species of trees. It is most prominently given to any of various coniferous trees and shrubs in the genus '' Taxus'': * European yew or common yew (''Taxus baccata'') * Pacific yew or western yew ('' Taxus ...
pyramids to the Private Garden with its rectangular pond; the second running east–west and linking what is now the Mediterranean Garden with the arrival 'court' in front of the house. Thomas defined a third axis, running parallel to the second along the middle of the rectangular lily pond and meeting the house at the centre of its East facade (which Lafontaine had made symmetric by adding an extra tower). All these axes were parallel to one or other of the main frontages of the house, and this, together with the series of enclosed spaces, served to draw the garden and house together in a harmonic whole, in line with Thomas' vision. Construction of the gardens was a major undertaking, starting with the demolition of the cowsheds and other dilapidated buildings that remained from the era when Athelhampton had been used as a farmhouse. Lafontaine's 1899 speech to the Dorchester Field Club explains that some 40,000 tons of Ham Hill stone were used in the construction. The core of Inigo Thomas' design remains today, with a series of extensions that have built on his original concepts. To the east, the Lime Walk runs parallel to the second axis and flowers magnificently in Spring, and beyond that the great Kitchen Garden is also aligned with the axes, and creates a further, large. outdoor room, its outer walls covered in pear trees that support roses and ''
Clematis ''Clematis'' is a genus of about 380 species within the buttercup family, Ranunculaceae. Their garden hybrids and cultivars have been popular among gardeners, beginning with ''Clematis'' 'Jackmanii', a garden staple since 1862; more cultivars ...
,'' while inside are pergolas of living apples trees. To the west, Lafontaine in 1901 asked Thomas Mawson to prepare plans to continue the works, which seem to have still been incomplete; the change of designer may have reflected Thomas being incarcerated in a Boer War prison camp at this time. Parts but not all of Mawson's plans were carried out, notably the long Yew Alley that runs south from the West Lawn, near the ancient
dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot (Scots Language, Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house Domestic pigeon, pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or b ...
. Along the side of the
River Piddle The River Piddle or Trent or North River is a small rural Dorset river which rises in the Dorset Downs and flows into Poole Harbour near Wareham. Etymology The river's name has Germanic origins and has had various spellings over the years. I ...
, which forms the northern boundary of the formal gardens, an embankment was built that creates a waterside walkway connecting the core of Thomas' design, on the east of the house, with the Mawson areas to the west.


Parish church

Across the former A35 road is the former
Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ...
of St John, built in 1861–62 to move the old parish church away from the house. St John's was designed by the Dorchester architect John Hicks, who employed
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
at the time. The
Diocese of Salisbury The Diocese of Salisbury is a Church of England diocese in the south of England, within the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the historic county of Dorset (which excludes the deaneries of Bournemouth and Christchurch, ...
declared St John's redundant in 1975, after which it fell into disrepair. The church, its pews and most of the graveyard were purchased by Athelhampton Estate in order to protect the building. It is now used by the
Antiochian Orthodox The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch (), also known as the Antiochian Orthodox Church and legally as the Rūm Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch and All the East (), is an autocephalous Greek Orthodox church within the wider communion of E ...
parish of St Edward King and Martyr. A congregation worships at services at the church every Sunday.


Railway locomotive

Great Western Railway The Great Western Railway (GWR) was a History of rail transport in Great Britain, British railway company that linked London with the southwest, west and West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, ...
steam locomotive 6971 ''Athelhampton Hall'' was one of the 71 Modified Hall Class locomotives used for passenger and freight in south and southwest England.
British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...
ways withdrew 6971 from service in October 1965 and she was scrapped. The locomotive's nameplates are displayed at Athelhampton.


Filming location

The house has been used as a location for the film ''Sleuth'' (1972), the ''
Doctor Who ''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series, created by Sydney Newman, C. E. Webber and Donald Wilson (writer and producer), Donald Wilson, depicts the adventures of an extraterre ...
'' serial ''
The Seeds of Doom ''The Seeds of Doom'' is the sixth and final serial of the Doctor Who (season 13), 13th season of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who'', which was first broadcast in six weekly parts on BBC One, BBC1 from 31 January to 6 M ...
'' (1976) and the episode " The Unicorn and the Wasp" (2008), and
Julian Fellowes Julian Alexander Kitchener-Fellowes, Baron Fellowes of West Stafford (born 17 August 1949), known professionally as Julian Fellowes, is an English actor, novelist, writer, producer, film director, and Conservative peer. He has received nume ...
's film '' From Time to Time'' (2009), based on ''The Chimneys of Green Knowe''.


References


Sources

*


External links


Athelhampton House
official website

where the Russian émigrée cubist painter
Marie Vorobieff Maria Bronislavovna Vorobyeva-Stebelska (; Maria Bronislavovna Vorobyova-Stebelskaya; 14 February 1892 – 4 May 1984), also known as "Marie Vorobieff" or Marevna, was a 20th-century, Russian-born painter known for her work with Cubism and ...
, known also as Marevna, stayed and worked between 1949 and 195


Orthodox parish of St. Edward, King and Passionbearer
* {{OpenDomesday, SY7794, athelhampton, Athelhampton Former civil parishes in Dorset Gardens in Dorset Grade I listed parks and gardens in Dorset Hamlets in Dorset