OPENING THE DOORS TO THEIR HISTORIC FAMILY HOME IN DORSET ALICE AND JULIAN KENNARD ON THE CARES AND JOYS OF LIVING IN AN ANCIENT ABBEY AND PRESERVING IT FOR THE FUTURE

"Places like this are about so much more than just us individuals, so we feel our role is to look after it' Alice

- CRISTINA LORA

The Kennard family, owners of historic Forde Abbey in Dorset, like to think that if one of the medieval monks who founded it were to return, he’d approve of what he discovered.

Of course, in the 900 years that it has stood on the banks of the River Axe, the abbey has seen many changes, most dramatically when Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries meant it passed into private hands.

Since then, a whole series of aristocratic owners have left their mark, but thankfully these have only added to the abbey’s charms.

Embellished with lush landscaped gardens and filled with impressive works of art, the house was known as a centre of culture by the time the Victorian era arrived.

It has played host to many illustrious figures, including the philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Most famously, it is home to the Mortlake Tapestries, woven during the Renaissance from designs created by Raphael for the Sistine Chapel in Rome.

Alice Kennard, née Roper, belongs to the fourth generation of her family to live at the abbey. “The Ropers arrived here in 1905,” she tells us, adding: “Places like this are about so much more than just us individuals, so we very much feel that our role is to look after it.”

The Kennards and their three children, Ben, Sam and Marcia, love their unique surroundings, where simple monks’ dormitories lie close to lavish state rooms and coats of arms jostle for position along the cloisters.