A centuries-old doodle of a cyclops has been discovered in a study-shy teenager’s book of ancient Greek plays by conservation staff restoring his family’s library in a Hampshire mansion.

William John Chute, who lived at The Vyne between 1757 and 1824, was the owner of the book and is believed to have drawn the sketch when he was 15. The National Trust has identified it as the cyclops Polephemus, from Homer’s Odyssey.

Several basic illustrations of men’s heads also appear in the margins of the book, which contains two of Euripides’ dramas, Iphigenia in Aulis and Iphigenia in Tauris. According to a spokesperson for the National Trust, William John “was not known for his academic prowess, but for his love of outdoor pursuits. He’d much rather have been out hunting and riding … hence the doodling.”

“Another of Euripides’ very well-known surviving dramas is Cyclops – specifically about Polyphemus. This is still performed today, so no doubt schoolboys would have been aware of its existence, and enthralled by the terrifying image of the man-eating Polyphemus,” said the spokesperson.

A team of conservation staff and volunteers is currently restoring and cataloguing almost 2,500 books in the Chute family’s library at The Vyne, carrying out their work in front of visitors and sharing their discoveries of the scribblings in the margins, pictures and personal letters they find as they go along.

House steward Dominique Shembry cleaning one of the Vyne’s 2,419 books. Photograph: Rah Petherbridge/National Trust

Once a great Tudor house, The Vyne was home to the Chute family for more than 350 years. It was saved from disrepair by the Victorian brother and sister William Wiggett Chute and Caroline Workman, and was given to the National Trust in 1956.

Dominique Shembry, The Vyne’s house steward, said that in the 19th century, the Wiggett Chute family used to stage theatrical performances there, using the books of children’s plays which are still in the library.

“The pages are littered with directions in the margins, and you can see their names written beside the parts they were to play. They really draw you into this family’s world,” said Shembry. “They clearly loved books, and they made use of them, too; they didn’t just display them.”

Shembry’s favourite doodle so far, she said, is titled Practical Measuring Made Easy to the Meanest Capacity By a New Set of Tables. “Inside are sketches of windows for The Vyne’s towers and complicated calculations, made by owner Anthony Chute in 1746 when he was trying to make practical upgrades to the house,” she said. “Everything we enjoy at The Vyne today is only here because of William Wiggett Chute’s determination to save the house from decay in the 19th century. And that includes the library, which he built, recycling bits and pieces where he could to save money. Some of the decoration comes from the family’s pew in the local church, but he also poached pieces from other rooms in the house.”

Last month, the Museum of English Rural Life caused a sensation when it revealed it had discovered a sketch of a chicken wearing trousers in the pages of a maths book dating back to 1784. The 13-year-old Richard Beale, from a farm in Biddenden, Kent, had included the chicken alongside the equations he had written out in a diary. “When you see a 13-year-old from the 18th century doing the kind of doodles that kids are doing today, it is so relatable – there’s an instant connection,” said the museum’s programme manager Adam Koszary at the time.