When Athelhampton House reopens after lockdown, on Wednesday it will be with three new Tudor-style portraits on display, all painted by Bridport-based artist Elizabeth Sporne.

The historic manor house changed hands last year and, as most of its furnishings and artworks were also sold, new owner Giles Keating found himself with the space to create fresh and imaginative displays for the popular visitor attraction.

Ideas included taking some of the most interesting characters from Athelhampton's past and weaving audio-visual stories around them – one has already been realised in a short film, showing on site and featuring Dorchester's New Hardy Players, which details author Thomas Hardy's association with the house. Another idea was to highlight some of its Tudor-era notables in traditional portraits but within a narrated, multimedia format – so, with a policy of using local practitioners whenever possible, Mr Keating commissioned Elizabeth Sporne to produce the portraits. However, once the paintings were delivered, he decided they should instead be exhibited in the main house, declaring them a "triumph".

As to the paintings' subjects – they were to be the Tudor monarchs Elizabeth I and her tyrant father Henry VIII, and Chidiock Tichborne, a young gentleman attached by marriage to Athelhampton.

No individual in the property's history was as infamous, or unfortunate, as Chidiock Tichborne. In the late 1500s this Southampton-born poet wed an Athelhampton heiress, but he became embroiled in the Babington Plot, a doomed conspiracy to assassinate the protestant Queen Elizabeth and install her Catholic cousin Mary of Scotland on the throne. He was executed as a traitor whilst still in his mid-twenties.

Portraits were uncommon in Tudor times and only the wealthiest could afford such luxury items; near-copies were often made of royal portraits for the nobility, to demonstrate loyalty, but few exist of lesser mortals. Still, one survives believed to be of Tichborne, and it is the basis for the first painting in the present-day series, with all three painted in oil on oak panel to echo the more than 500-years-old originals.

The plan is still to feature the new-version portraits in a high-tech display, but delays caused by the Covid lockdowns have allowed for a change of tack. The paintings themselves will stay in the main house (the king and queen in the Great Hall, the disgraced relative in the King's Ante Room) but soon they should also be seen, in that 'media experience' concept, as projections. Perhaps this is, after all, a fitting way to appear in what is reputedly one of the most haunted houses in the land.

Elizabeth Sporne's studio at St Michael's in Bridport is open Friday and Saturday 11am-3pm, and by appointment. Covid measures apply. Visit elizabethsporne.com

Athelhampton House, near Dorchester, is open Sunday to Friday from December 2 with 'Covid Crisis hours' of 12-3pm, and the Grade 1 listed gardens are open 10am-4pm. Booking online advised during Covid-restricted times at athelhampton.com