Athelhampton House

OVERVIEW

A stone manor house near Puddletown built in 1485 for Sir William Martyn, with a great hall of that date, later wings and the gardens laid out in the 1890s; Thomas Hardy, whose father worked on the house, used it as Athelhall. The house keeps a Ghosts page on its own website and the Dorset History Centre has written up its stories.

HISTORY

The Martyn crest was an ape looking into a mirror — 'He who looks at Martyn's ape, Martyn's ape shall look at him' — and the tradition that the last Nicholas Martyn (d. 1595) kept a pet ape follows from it. The house passed through the Brunes, Longs, de Mauleys and, since 2019, the Keating family.

REPORTED ACTIVITY

The ape is heard scratching behind the panelling of the Great Chamber, where in one version a Martyn daughter hid in a secret room and the animal followed her in and starved. A Grey Lady in the Tudor room was reported by a retired housemaid and by the housekeeper in 1966; a cooper is heard at his barrel in the wine cellar; a headless figure and duelling men complete the house's list. Told by the house and recorded by the county archive.

VISITING

Open seasonally, ticketed; house, gardens and restaurant.