114 ATHELHAMPTON HALL. 



of the Earl of Mornington by his marriage with Catherine, 

 daughter of Sir James Tylney Long. Their eldest son, fifth 

 Earl of Mornington, great nephew of the great Duke of 

 Wellington, in the year 1848, sold the estate to Mr. George 

 Wood. In 1891 I myself became the owner of the property. 

 You will notice that the estate has only changed hands three 

 times through purchase. 



The date of the greater part of the house, as you now see it, 

 is generally assigned to the end of the i5th century. Sir William 

 Martin, who died in 1503, is said to have built the north wing of 

 the courtyard, the beautiful gatehouse, and added a third storey 

 with gables to what, no doubt, was formerly a quadrangular one- 

 storied house, a type so common at the close of the i3th and 

 beginning of the i4th centuries, and which was a style of 

 domestic architecture likely to be resorted to at a period when 

 security was not to be disregarded. As far as I have been able 

 to ascertain, I think there must at one time have been three, if 

 not four, quadrangles or enclosed courts. The first, outside the 

 gatehouse, extended about as far as where the present Italian 

 gates stand. This was enclosed on all sides by walls, a church, 

 or more correctly, private chapel, standing in the south-west 

 corner. The second or "fore-court" was enclosed on the N. 

 and E. sides by the mansion, and on the S. and W. by the gate- 

 house and connecting walls. The third or inner quadrangle was, 

 I believe, surrounded on all sides by different wings of the house. 

 At present only the W. formed by the great hall and S. sides 

 are standing. If there was another quadrangle it would have 

 been where the present modern kitchen offices are. 



When one thinks what the house must have been even in the 

 memory of many still living, and sees it in its present mutilated 

 condition, it cannot but fill one with a very deep regret. To me 

 it seems to have been an act of terrible Vandalism to have 

 destroyed so unique and beautiful a specimen of mediaeval 

 domestic architecture as Athelhampton must have been. I 

 believe so lately as the year 1862 the house and quadrangles were 

 practically untouched, But in that year the chapel, gatehouse, 



