Friday 7th November 2025
Starts 18:00 until 20:30
Athelhampton House & Gardens, Puddletown, Dorset DT2 7LG

WW1: Hardy at Athelhampton

Date: Friday, 7th November 2025

Time: 6pm to 8.30pm

Cost: £25*

£23* Members (THS, TELS, SSF, ETF, WPA)

Venue: Athelhampton House

*Includes a glass of wine or soft drink on arrival

The bar will be open and parking is free

The Green Parlour, Athelhampton House

Thomas Hardy and his second wife Florence were dining with Alfred Cart de Lafontaine at Athelhampton on the day that the First World War was declared.

To set the scene for the War Poetry Conference, local actors will re-create that fateful dinner in the very room it took place, with the audience moving to other historic rooms to watch events unfold.

The evening will be hosted by Giles Keating, custodian of Athelhampton who has recently published a book on Hardy's poetry, and will include a showing in the Tudor Great Hall of dramatised video readings, now being released on the Internet, of key poems that Hardy wrote about both Emma and Florence in the years leading up to the War.

Alfred Cart de Lafontaine, a young Victorian gentleman, bought Athelhampton in 1890 and set about restoring the house and gardens. He engaged Francis Inigo Thomas to create the architectural gardens using over 40,000 tonnes of Ham stone. Internally, Cart de Lafontaine altered the room layout, extensively redecorating the house and adding a new turret to give symmetry to the East Front.

Thomas Hardy visited Athelhampton throughout his life. As a child, he visited his father, who was the mason making repairs to the house. In his teens, he visited and painted a watercolour of Athelhampton House and even scratched his name and the date in the stained glass window. Hardy made many drawings of Athelhampton Church whilst apprenticed to architect John Hicks helping him to mark out the church and churchyard. In his late twenties, he fell in love with Tryphena Sparks, the young teacher's assistant at Athelhampton School.

When he was 50, Hardy learned that Athelhampton had been sold to a man half his age, he was concerned about what might happen to the manor house. He wrote to Lafontaine, urging him to 'be kind' to the old house, the two men became friends, the elder mentoring the younger, with his sympathetic restoration.

Cart de Lafontaine entertained Thomas Hardy at Athelhampton on many occasions. They both shared a passion for architecture, antique furnishings and gardens and like Hardy, Cart de Lafontaine also became a Magistrate in Dorchester. Hardy was dining at Athelhampton in the Green Parlour when a telegram was received announcing that England had declared war on Germany.

Cart de Lafontaine was never satisfied with his many changes to Athelhampton. Having spent a fortune, he sold Athelhampton to release his money after his namesake, favourite nephew and heir, Captain Alfred Edward Cecil Cart de Lafontaine was killed in action at Montaubon, Battle of the Somme in 1916 aged 28.

BOOK ONLINE

Hardy visiting Athelhampton circa 1914

Giles Keating's new book "Thomas Hardy: 10 Lovers 50 Poems" not only re-tells the story of his wives and lovers by using 50 of his love poems, but also includes explanation of his poetic techniques, and the way that he uses these to explain his feelings and his perception of what his partners are experiencing.

The book reports some new research on Hardy’s partners, notably Eliza Nicholls (subject of the "She, to Him" poems). This suggests that rather than becoming an embittered spinster with little purpose in life, she achieved considerable financial success through her own efforts and died a wealthy woman.

Attractively produced with 10 original drawings of Hardy's romantic partners, and extensive still photographs from the accompanying videos (available online) which were shot in Dorset last year featuring actors from the New Hardy Players and Dorchester Youth Theatre.

Thomas Hardy: 10 Lovers 50 Poems, by Giles Keating, with Foreward by Mark Chutter and illustrations by Noah Warnes, is published by Athelhampton Press.

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