News from Athelhampton House & Gardens.

Regular visitors to Athelhampton may well have noticed a recent change in the Great Chamber. On the right hand side of the fireplace, beneath a cubist painting by Marevna, sits a new wooden chest: a new addition to the collection of 16th Century furniture at Athelhampton House & Gardens. Merman on the carved 16th Century Chest at Athelhampton House & Gardens Intricately carved, it shows a bizarre collection of mythical creatures across its front. Surly mermen look out at the

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

Here at Athelhampton House & Gardens, we don't just have the formal gardens laid out for Alfred Carte de Lafontaine by Inigo Thomas. Tucked away to the East is the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampton. At an acre in size, it doesn't just contain vegetables: it also contains around 40 apple trees. Some of the heritage apple trees in the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampton House & Gardens Many of these trees were planted when the Edwardian Kitchen Garden at Athelhampto

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

If you want to visit both Athelhampton House & Gardens and Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens this summer, and save money while doing so, now is your opportunity! Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens, one of Dorset's top attractions While Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens are known for their exotic planting, winding pathways and thousands of fascinating plants from around the world, Athelhampton's gardens are far more formal, with a historic setting, and more in the way of native species.

Grey skies settled over Athelhampton House & Gardens this evening, bringing the promise of much needed rain that had been forecast all day. After weeks of hot, dry weather, our lawns have taken on their summer golden tones, and the gardens are quietly hoping for a gentle soaking. Just a few miles away, the rain fell, but here the clouds drifted on without a single drop. We’ll keep hoping that the next shower finds its way to Athelhampton. Athelhampton House & Gardens are open

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

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

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

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

If you've visited the shop at Athelhampton House & Gardens recently, or even just popped into our restaurant, you'll have noticed that we have some new things you can buy! Gyb wants his cattuccino Inspired by our favourite fluffy friend, we now have all manner of things themed around Gyb the Cat. From mugs, to cards, to jigsaw puzzles and colouring books, if you like cats (or if you like Gyb in particular) there's something for you! Athelhampton House & Gardens are open 7 day

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

In a blow for international visitors to Athelhampton, Brittany Ferries announced on Tuesday that it was going to sell Barfleur, the ferry which serves the Poole-Cherbourg route, closing the service in November. This isn't the first time she's been withdrawn from the Poole-Cherbourg route, and she was briefly acquired by LD Lines in 2012-2013 for their Dover-Calais route, but ultimately never ran that route before Brittany Ferries took her back again. This time, though, it see

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

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

The newly refurbished art gallery at Athelhampton is a space designed for local artists to exhibit their work, and these temporary exhibitions change regularly. Our new artist, who was installed yesterday, is Silvia Pineda. The Mexican born daughter of a jeweller and a sculptor, artistry runs in Silvia's blood. She's exhibited her paintings in our art gallery before, with her vibrant blend of colour and movement offering a lively contemporary contrast within Athelhampton's hi

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

For a while, there's been a bit of a gap in the shop at Athelhampton. To most new visitors, it probably isn't noticeable, but for returning visitors and to all our staff, it's been a bit of a hole. However, it's recently been filled again! Book and Bucket Cheeses, made in Dorset, in the shop at Athelhampton Our old fridge had broken, and so we were no longer able to offer the various speciality cheeses, drinks, meats, and other local produce that we had done for years. Howeve