The Writing Desk: Visiting Athelhampton Historic House and Gardens in Dorset

26 October 2024

Visiting Athelhampton Historic House and Gardens in Dorset

Athelhampton House is one of England's finest Tudor Manors, a few miles from Dorchester in Dorset, near the village of Puddletown, and was buzzing with preparations for Tudor Week - Living History at Athelhampton (28th October-1st November 2024, (and 27th to 31st October, 2025)

During Tudor week living historians take on the characters of the 16th-century residents of Athelhampton, from gentlefolk to servants, and live, speak and act this part continuously, from early morning right through the day and into the evening.

Juliet Braidwood, taking a rare moment

from arranging Tudor Week

Cooks and servants prepare food in the Elizabethan kitchen, with its vast brick arch, and serve it in the Great Hall, built in 1485, which remains greatly unchanged with a hammer-beam roof, which has an unusual and possibly unique curved support.

Visitors can try Tudor food, have a go at period dances, learn to play games, examine clothing, try writing with a quill and much more.

I was fortunate to spend a morning with the owner, Giles Keating (author of the Anne of Athelhampton series). When he arrived five years ago, Giles researched the Martyn family. He found that about 1485 Sir William Martyn, merchant and landowner, whose family collected duties at Poole Harbour, built Athelhampton Hall, and the Martyns and their descendants became Lords of Athelhampton for the next 250 years.

Giles was struck by how unusual it was that the daughters had been made heiresses of the estate, becoming attractive marriage partners for desirable suitors - and undesirable ones! Anne, as a feisty and determined twelve-year old, finds herself entangled in the family feud with her sinister cousin, 'Young John'.

Giles revealed secret passageways and a hidden priest hole, and explained he is on a mission to restore the rooms with authentic period furniture but wishes to recognise how the history of the house has evolved with each generation of owners, and visitors from Thomas Hardy to Noel Coward.

One of the challenges of a Tudor house with as many rooms (seventeen open to the public) as Athelhampton is the cost of keeping them all warm and dry. Giles installed four hundred hidden solar panels, solved his over £50,000 a year energy bills and Athelhampton is now carbon neutral.

There are also many original Tudor roses to look out for, as well as a rare single rose of Lancaster, likely to date from the time of King Henry VII, carved into a wooden door.