Athelhampton Hall

Athelhampton Hall is a manor house with formal gardens begun in 1493 by Sir William Martyn and continued by his heirs throughout the 16th century, including the construction of the west wing. During the 17th century, the 15th-century service range was remodelled and heightened, which obscured a window in the south-east gable of the hall. The gate-house and connecting walls were demolished in 1862. In the late 19th century, ranges of buildings to the north-east of the hall were removed. In 1891 the house was purchased by A C de la Fontaine and carefully restored, with the south-east range remodelled and extended. In the 1920s the solar was reconstructed including a stair leading to it from an original archway in the north-west side of the hall, and a new range was built on the north-east side of the inner court.

The external walls are faced in ashlar, mainly limestone and greensand with Ham Hill stone for the dressings. Clay tile roofs are used throughout with larger stone slates at the eaves courses, and stone gable copings with heraldic finials.

The south-west front dates to the late 15th and early 16th centuries and features a porch, wall, oriel and the end of the service range to the south. The front has a plinth and castellated parapet. The four-sided hall oriel is buttressed with paired transomed lights in pointed heads and a lower castellated parapet. The four-light hall window has a central buttress carried up as a supermullion. The two-storey porch has splayed corners with attached angle-shafts and a pointed arch entrance with label. A two-light window in a square head sits above the entrance, with a label featuring head stops. South of this is the gable end wall of the service range, with a ground floor three-light window with ovolo mouldings and label with re-used head stops, a first floor similar four-light window, and an attic three-light window. The 17th-century openings are probably contemporary with the heightening of the range. A polygonal corner turret is of 15th-century date.

The west wing dates to the mid-16th century and is two and a half storeys with three windows and two gabled dormers. The windows have four-light mullions, iron casements with lead lights, and string moulding that drops each side to form labels, with returned labels over the first floor and three-light windows to the dormers. The west end is defined by octagonal angle-shafts with concave sides, the southerly stopped above the former forecourt wall. The gable wall has mullion windows of eight, six and four lights, with the ground floor light being transomed and having a supermullion at the centre, with labels above and a lozenge beneath the attic window. The north wall is faced with coursed rubble. To the east of a large chimney breast is a gabled bay of two storeys with a cellar and attic, featuring three-light windows on each floor. Further east are windows of a spiral stair, the lowest level being square-headed with two-centred lights under blind tracery. An obtuse re-entrant angle stands beside this, where a short stretch of 15th-century solar wall survives, with a section of 15th-century weathered gable above.

East of this is a 1920s rebuilding of the solar block consisting of two low storeys and an attic, gabled in form. The ground floor has a single-light depressed arch window reset, and the first floor has a canted oriel with trefoiled mullioned lights and a flanking light each side, with a continuous string above and stone roof. The attic has a pierced quatrefoil in a square frame with a label above.

The south-east front is two and a half storeys with irregular fenestration. It acquired an approximately symmetrical appearance around 1895 when the east turret and adjacent gable were built. Rubble wall face up to the level of first floor sills remains from the 15th-century wing, as does the moulded plinth. Most of the stonework above is 17th-century. A projecting bay at the centre may represent an early chimney breast, now pierced by a two-centred archway within which stands a reset two-centred doorway with ovolo mouldings. Behind the east turret stands a late 16th-century kitchen wing.

The east range comprises remains of the 16th-century kitchen wing built in thin red and blue bricks with ashlar dressings and a diagonal two-stage buttress at the east corner. North of this the range was rebuilt in the 1890s and 1920s with four, three and two-light mullions with 20th-century metal casements and lead lights. The doorway has moulded stone jambs and a depressed-arch head. On the west side of this range is an extruding rounded stairwell. The hall range was joined to the 16th-century kitchen wing by a 16th-century passageway which has been divided internally but retains doorways and a window now looking into a 1920s pentice-roofed passage.

Interior: The screens passage has original oak doors at each end decorated on the outside with moulded and cusped wooden tracery. Two openings communicate with the former service wing. Oak screens are partly of late 15th-century date with 16th-century linenfold panels. The parapet is a recent addition. The hall is lined to half its height with linenfold panelling brought from elsewhere. The east and west windows have restored 16th-century glazing including monograms and armorial achievements. The 15th-century open timber roof, occasionally repaired, is arch-braced to a high collar with the bracing brought out to a cusp, featuring moulded purlins and cusped wind-bracing. The oriel window has panelled jambs.

The ground floor room of the west wing has a wide four-centred arch fireplace, above which are set eight carved wooden medallions dating to around 1540. The moulded plaster ceiling is a 20th-century reproduction. The first floor room has panelling and plaster ceiling dated 1893.

The first floor of the service range contains a state bedchamber with a 15th-century fireplace having a square head of Ham stone with moulded soffit and jambs and a frieze of six quatrefoil ogee panels enclosing plain shields, a vase and foliate bosses, with spandrels carved with conventional foliage and heraldic emblems. Seventeenth-century oak panelling in four heights is surmounted by a frieze with sea monsters.

The south turret is now fitted out as an oratory.