News from Athelhampton House & Gardens.

When you visit Athelhampton House & Gardens, if you explore the house you'll come across linenfold panelling at every turn. To many people, that term means nothing, and it would have meant nothing to the medieval and Tudor craftsmen who created Athelhampton House, despite their familiarity with it as an object. Linenfold panelling imitates folded linen or paper through relieve carving used on wood. While it originated in Flanders in the 1300s, it spread across Northern Europe

When visiting Athelhampton House & Gardens, there are plenty of easy-to-overlook details. At first glance, the Oak Panelled Room next door to Athelhampton's kitchen is plain, with little of interest. There's wood panelling, a wooden floor, a wooden dresser, and a wooden table and chairs. But when you look closer at some of the furnishings, an interesting story emerges. Lambeth Delftware Plate in the Oak Panelled Room at Athelhampton House & Gardens On the Welsh Dresser facing

16th Century English money was solid, heavy, and made from precious metals. While the history of lightweight money in the form of promissory notes dates back to nearly 150BC in Carthage, by Tudor times money was made of (mostly) gold and silver. Some coins, like the gold sovereign, looked like a modern day chocolate coin in terms of colour and size! Gold Sovereign, or £1, from the time of Elizabeth I At this time, the Martyn family of Athelhampton had huge amounts of wealth,

As a historic house, with equally historic gardens, we're particularly keen to protect our heritage at Athelhampton House & Gardens. Sometimes that means preserving things perfectly, as they always have been. At other times, that requires us to make alterations: keeping things the same isn't always the best way to protect them. And sometimes, returning things to the way they once were is impossible. Planting Lavender at Athelhampton House & Gardens Three years ago, we were de

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has met with mixed opinions from staff at Athelhampton House & Gardens, with some thoroughly enjoying this new adaptation, while others arguing that it's historically inaccurate, and has been modernised too much. Still from Nolan's The Odyssey, 2026 The ancient Greek and Roman myths, especially the Homeric epics, have fascinated us since they were first created. Through the Renaissance, when Athelhampton was built and added to, there was a rene

At Athelhampton House & Gardens, we never sit still, even when it comes to events from 500 years ago. We're very much of the opinion that while history has already taken place, there are always more things to discover! And sometimes, we find out we were wrong. Elizabethan Bed in the Tudor Bedroom at Athelhampton A few months ago, we enhanced the Marriage Chamber - one of the Tudor bedrooms - at Athelhampton, rehanging an early seventeenth century Flemish tapestry there. Prior

Most visitors to the Little Library at Athelhampton House & Gardens these days haven’t heard of Percy F. Westerman, and don't know why so many of his books sit on the shelves in this room. A prolific writer of boys adventure stories through the first half of the 20th Century, Westerman averaged 3.6 books a year over the course of 50 years. He spent much of his life living in a houseboat in Wareham, not far from Athelhampton. Percy F. Westerman, from a British Pathe film His w

There's plenty of stained glass at Athelhampton House & Gardens, and much of it is originally medieval, or 16th Century. It's possible with almost all of it to identify the family it's connected to, and how they were connected to Athelhampton and the Martyn family, thanks to the coats of arms or crests shown. The Kelway coat of arms in the window in the Great Chamber at Athelhampton House In the Green Dining Room, though, we have a bit of a mystery. A fragment of stained glas

When you visit us, it's always worth looking closer at the small details. The outside roses at Athelhampton House & Gardens bloom beautifully through the summer, but inside the house, there are roses blooming all year round. Library Rose In the library, a small rose peeps down from the top of the panelling, almost hidden amongst the carvings covering the walls. King's Room Rose In the Kings Room, a gilded rose decorates part of the fireplace, this time with the more usual fiv

The news this week has been all over the fact that Nigel Farage is wanting to resign as an MP, is resigning as MP, and has resigned as MP, so that he can trigger a by-election. The issue with all of these headlines is that it's not actually permitted for MPs to resign from their posts. And the other obvious question you may have is "What does any of this have to do with Athelhampton House & Gardens?" Back in the 1620s, being an MP wasn't very desirable. While Parliament wasn'

One of the pieces of furniture that we often get questions about at Athelhampton House & Gardens is the stone sink in the scullery, just beyond the kitchen. At first glance, this shallow block of stone is apparently pointless: how are you meant to fill it with water and use it for washing up?! The reality is that, while it is a sink, it wasn't originally intended to be anything like the kitchen sinks that we're used to today. Historically, it wouldn't have been used with a wa

Visiting places like Athelhampton House & Gardens or Max Gate can be a wonderful way of seeing how fashions and tastes in domestic spaces have evolved over time. On a recent visit to Max Gate, we spotted all sorts of late Victorian things that make a nice comparison to things you can see at Athelhampton, both older and more modern. Max Gate, home of author Thomas Hardy, regular visitor to Athelhampton House In the dining-rooms, we're both late-Victorian but with the services

Nearly 200 years ago, the owner of Athelhampton House & Gardens, the fabulously wealthy Catherine Tylney Long, was courted by Robert "Romeo" Coates, an actor famed for his performances as Romeo. This July, come and see Romeo and Juliet performed as outdoor theatre at Athelhampton House & Gardens. Back in the early nineteenth century, Athelhampton House & Gardens were owned by the wealthiest commoner in England: Catherine Tylney Long. As a woman with a fabulously large fortune

Today is the anniversary of the death of William Pole-Tylney-Long-Wellesley, 4th Earl of Mornington, which is something that plenty of people would have had cause to celebrate (including his wife, if he hadn't arguably caused her death!). William Pole Tylney Long Wellesley Notorious for his dissolute lifestyle, William was many things, but nice doesn't seem to have been one of them. Nephew of the Duke of Wellington, William was a big spender, drinking and gambling heavily to

A recent visit to Sherbourne Castle, another member of our Dorset Garden Trail, showed off the grounds beautifully. Sherbourne New Castle With its dramatic lake and naturalistic landscaping courtesy of Capability Brown, the grounds give an impression of simply having grown without any outside help or intervention. The natural calmness and harmony of the landscape Brown created belies the reality of the planning and the hard manual labour that had to go into creating the artif

On this day in 1685, the King James II had been on the throne for four months and five days. After the chaos and bloodshed of the Civil War, England wanted to try to stick to having a hereditary monarchy again, and not interrupt the line of succession. James had inherited the throne from his brother Charles, who had had plenty of children - the problem being that none of them were legitimate. Charles II However, there was a bit of a problem with James II. He was Catholic. In

When you go round Athelhampton House & Gardens, it's always worth looking up. Hidden details feature in almost every ceiling around the house, and the library is no exception. Alfred Carte de Lafontaine refurbished the room in 1893, stripping out the internal walls to create his "Long Gallery," where he could display his antiques. To complement these objects, many of them Tudor and Stuart in origin, he had the room decorated in a suitable style. The ceiling is heavily decorat

Fairly small and unnoticed, compared to the rainbow of the stained glass or the splendour of the roof, two Green Men sit above two doorways in the medieval Great Hall at Athelhampton House & Gardens. A Green Man in Athelhampton's Great Hall We're not sure how old these two particular "foliate faces" are: they may be contemporary with the rest of the 15th century screen they're attached too, or possibly they were added by Alfred Carte de Lafontaine, when he sourced the screen

In the current hot weather, a visit to Hardy's Cottage, surrounded by shady woodland, felt appropriate. Another visitor attraction local to Athelhampton, Hardy's Cottage has a very different history. Hardy's Cottage with its Cottage Garden A small cob and thatch building, Hardy was still living here when he wrote Far From the Madding Crowd, a novel that is essentially set in Puddletown and at Athelhampton, though both go by different names in the book. In his descriptions of

Looking back through the visitor guidebooks for Athelhampton that have been produced since the 1960s this morning has proved to be a fascinating way of seeing not just how knowledge advances over time, but also how tastes change! 60 years of guidebooks at Athelhampton Research into Athelhampton, the house, and the families who lived here is constantly ongoing: it's only in the last month that we discovered an extra family who briefly owned Athelhampton, meaning that we need t