ATIIELHAMPTON HALL, 



DORSETSHIRE. 



AMI I H \MI'I ON, formerly written Athe!- 

 hampMon and sometimes pronounced 

 niston, is a parish set in the Dorset- 

 shire Mutuire.l of 1'uddlctown. That 

 name of Athelhampston in the skilful hands 

 of the oKier historians made of the parish the 

 cni si-at of >.i\on kings or, at the least, the 

 home of jfcthclhclm, slain In-fore the Dorset host 

 t he led them against the Danes on the Bill of 

 Portland. In our own 

 times the antiquary has 

 lost courage, and a place- 

 name tempting to a guess 

 at its origin is known to 

 he a trap baited for reck- 

 less investigators. 



Domesday cannot In- 

 cited for Athclhampston, 

 and although there is 

 much material for its early 

 history, no arrangement 

 of documents has yet 

 been achieved, and all 

 is still piecemeal and 

 uncertain until we touch 

 the name of those 

 Marty us who built the 

 ancient hall. I.oundres 

 there certainly were and 

 I'ydcls among its early 

 lords, but the Dorsetshire 

 historian displays to us a 

 long and chaotic pedigree 

 with a thin documentary 

 backing. At least it seems 

 certain that the later 

 Martyns considered them- 

 selves heirs of the blood 

 of both these early 

 Athclhampston families, 

 marshalling their arm- 

 among tnc shields of 

 alliance which coloured 

 the gla/ed panes of their 

 hall. The red bars of 

 the Martyn shield show 

 the family for a branch 

 of the baronial family of 

 the Martyns, barons of 

 Darlington in Devonshire 

 under Henry II., the 

 pedigree giving the first- 

 named Sir Robert as 

 eleventh in descent from 

 a " Martyn of Tours," 

 who landed, as an ancestor 



should, from a Norman ship in I'cxensey Bay. 

 In any case these Martyns were atuient nobility 

 of the lountry side. A fine of King John's 

 reign tells us that a Martyn was then lord of 

 the castle of 1'ydele in Dorset, and from 

 an early age they were lords of Athel- 

 hampston. Their marriages with FlringdonS 

 and 1'oulets, C'heverelU and Daul>eneys show that 

 they held to their gentle rank, anil their later 



70 7//f. 



G.\KDK\. 



