Athelhampton House

The entrance front

The house dates from 1485 when it was built for Sir William Martyn, the Lord Mayor of London. It has changed hands a number of times, but has now been owned by three generations of the Cooke family. Your first sight of it is the Great Hall, to the right, and the Parlour Range to the left which was added in the first quarter of the 16th century. At this point it is difficult to judge its overall size.

We especially admired the interior of the Great Hall with its impressive half hammer-beam roof dating from 1485.

We were also very taken with the Gallery on the top floor. This contains paintings by a Russian painter known as Marevna (Marie Vorobieff), who was married to Rodney Phillips, the owner of the house prior to the Cooke family. She seems to have had an interesting life in Paris from 1912 where she was part of an artistic circle including Chaim Soutine, Modigliani, Braque, Picasso and Diega Rivera, by whom she had a son. The paintings at Athelhampton seem to have been done late in her life in a cubist or pointilliste style. This is the largest example.

Marevna is in the bottom left with Diego Rivera behind her. Rivera of course was later married to Frida Kahlo.

Going now into the gardens, designed in 1891 by Inigo Thomas, we started in the beautiful small enclosure called the Corona.

And moved from here to the Great Court with its impressive Yew pyramids.

We walked across the front of the house to reach the lovely Doveote.

And now we could see the whole of the left side of the house, its full size now at last apparent. It is fairly obvious that most of this is more recent. Pevsner says it dates from around 1895 and 1920-21.

We saw a little of the mighty River Puddle or Piddle and wandered through the large kitchen garden, now being refurbished, and the Private Garden on the other side of the house.

We finished in classic country-house-visiting style by buying some plants, an autobiographical book by Marevna (which I have been enjoying) and some Notelets.

Conditions: a warm but cloudy day.

Distance: negligible.

Rating: four stars. Delightful house and gardens. The staff were uniformly friendly and helpful.