News from Athelhampton House & Gardens.

As good luck would have it, the rain stayed away from Athelhampton for almost all of this evening’s outdoor performance of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by The Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Just a tiny shower right at the end! With the poor weather forecast, the gardening team were consulted about the potential rain. As they are keen weather-watchers, they correctly predicted that it would be dry this evening until 9pm! For more outdoor theatre at Athelhampton, you can come and see t

The Silver Safe at Athelhampton has just reopened after a week of renovations. It is the smallest of the 20 historic rooms open to the public. Athelhampton was purchased in 1660 by Sir Robert Long, (treasurer to Queen Henrietta Maria) he was a wealthy landowner and had many estates in Dorset, London, Wiltshire and Yorkshire. In the 1750s his descendants spent time at all their various estates. This may have been when this room was added, enabling valuable silverware to be lo

Athelhampton is a beautiful stately home - one of the finest country houses in Dorset - but it was hardly the place for royalty in the 16th Century. Royal progresses, where the monarch essentially went "on tour" around the country, were huge affairs, involving hundreds if not thousands of people. Athelhampton, while a big house by modern standards, wasn't ever big enough to host the royal court. Sir William Martyn, who built some of the earliest parts of Athelhampton, escorte