Athelhampton House

En un regard

Le château en bref

On the banks of the Piddle, east of Puddletown and a few kilometres from Dorchester, Athelhampton is one of the finest late medieval and Tudor manor houses in Dorset. Its great hall, built for Sir William Martyn at the end of the 15th century, has kept its original oak roof, its battlemented oriel and its heraldic stained glass, while the wings added in the 16th century by his heirs give it its picturesque irregular plan. The house also owes its reputation to its gardens. From 1891, Alfred Cart de Lafontaine meticulously restored the manor and commissioned Francis Inigo Thomas to create a series of walled gardens: the Great Court with its twelve clipped yew pyramids, the circular Corona and its pool, and the Private Garden with its satyr masks. Listed at the highest grade, they rank among the great architectural gardens of Victorian England. Still privately owned, Athelhampton today opens its furnished rooms and gardens to visitors and hosts weddings and receptions. Thomas Hardy, who painted a watercolour of it in 1859, was often a guest of Cart de Lafontaine.