A 900-year-old abbey decorated with foliage and flowers from its 30-acre garden
The exterior of Forde Abbey, a rambling beauty of a house set on the banks of the River Axe close to where the borders of Devon, Somerset and Dorset intersect, is a storybook in stone that encompasses 900 years of English history. Unlike so many of the monasteries that fell into ruin after the Reformation, Forde has been continuously inhabited since its foundation in the twelfth century.
The lancet windows of the monks’ dormitory, on the first floor of one wing, are a reminder of the austerity that characterised early Cistercians. On the other side of the building, the richly decorated Tudor tower and gothic tracery of cloister windows are a legacy of the vast wealth that made these religious institutions such an irresistible quarry for a cash-strapped king. Tall mullioned windows along this southern façade are joined by sash windows dating from the mid-seventeenth century, while their gothic-revival glazing of tessellated octagons dates from 100 years later. Generations of owners have embellished and shaped the house to suit changing lifestyles, resulting in an architectural amalgam so diverse and yet pleasing that Nikolaus Pevsner included Forde in his 1986 book The Best Buildings of England.
The current owners, Alice Kennard and her husband Julian, have made their own adjustments. Alice is the fourth generation of Ropers to live at Forde, a property with land and tenanted farms, which came to the family through marriage in 1905. Having grown up here as the oldest of three daughters, it was a given she would one day take over the running of the house and estate. At agricultural college in Cirencester, she met Julian, who had been brought up on an estancia in Argentina. Eight years later, in 1997, they married and moved into the Home Farm on the Forde Abbey estate. In 2009, they swapped addresses with Alice’s parents, Mark and Lisa Roper, and took up residence in the Abbey with their three young children, Ben, Sam and Marcia, now aged 19, 16 and 13.
‘We had a list of priorities, one of which was to carve out some private, family space,’ says Alice. ‘My mother had made a family kitchen by knocking together a corridor and sewing room at the west end of the house. I turned the little breakfast room into our snug and these are the rooms we live in. When we entertain, we use the dining room and drawing room at the front of the house next to the kitchen. The staircase behind these rooms leads up to our bedrooms and bathrooms.’
Another priority was to replace the oil and gas boilers with a single biomass boiler in a purpose-built shed, which aside from being eco-friendly, greatly reduces the fire risk in the house. Then, of course, there is the ongoing process of maintenance and restoration to administer, and the continued drive to increase visitor numbers and ensure the house helps pay for its upkeep. ‘I often wish I had done business studies instead of land management at college,’ says Alice, who is effectively CEO, while Julian runs the farm, with its herd of 2,500 goats producing eight per cent of the UK’s goat milk. ‘The estate is a business – our aim has always been to keep it as a family home and out of the hands of the National Trust.’
The house is of architectural importance both inside and out, with its sixteenth-century great hall and a series of rooms created in the seventeenth century with elaborate moulded-plaster ceilings. The grandest of these is the first-floor saloon, which is still hung with the rare set of 1640 Mortlake tapestries commissioned to fit its handsome proportions.
However, the bigger draw for most visitors is the 30-acre garden, which includes a Victorian walled kitchen garden, a rock garden designed by Alice’s great-grandmother, an arboretum planted by her grandfather and a bog garden developed by her father, as well as four ponds and glorious herbaceous borders. A recent addition is the spiral flowerbed, devised by Alice and planted with tulips in spring and hazy with a swirl of wildflowers later on. There is a plant nursery, a shop and a tea room in the twelfth-century undercroft. And events are held through the year: supper clubs, wreath workshops, a summer fair, and classical concerts in the great hall.
The garden is open all year round, the house from April to October and, last year for the first time, also for two weeks in December. The experiment was a success and it is open for Christmas again this year. The garden is dramatically illuminated and the entrance hall and cloisters, chapel, great hall, dining room and drawing room all lavishly decorated.
If you arrive as night falls, a walk in the garden is magical. Huge trees seem carved in gold against a dark sky and the house appears to float in space, its façade washed with light, its crenellated silhouette reflected in the long pond. The cloisters twinkle with fairy lights wound through fir branches studded with allium seed heads. A nine-metre tree reaches towards the oak-panelled ceiling of the great hall, hung with silver pine cones, cranberries and allium pom-poms. From here you enter the dining room, where the table is laid with Dickensian splendour and sideboards are piled with dried fruits, pumpkins and evergreen foliage.
The effect is gorgeous and very English. Many of the decorations are created using materials gathered from the estate. Everyone helps – family and staff, including head gardener Josh Sparkes – bringing branches from the arboretum, threading dried-orange slices, drilling holes in pine cones, fixing swags of fir, filling urns with ivy and evergreens. It is a communal effort, overseen by Alice with the help of Forde’s creative director Caroline Duval, who often posts romantic images of the garden on Instagram (@fordeabbey).
‘It’s hard work but fun,’ says Alice. ‘Our private celebrations begin on Christmas Eve, with a candlelit carol service in the chapel for locals, followed by mulled wine and mince pies in the great hall, and up to 30 for supper in the lower refectory. After dinner, we burn a faggot on the embers of the fire, made from lengths of ash cut the year before, bound with green hazel. As each bond bursts, we toast every branch of the family – cousins in Spain and Australia, my sister in Canada, Julian’s family in Argentina.’ Under Kennard stewardship, it does not look as though Forde Abbey is going to fall into the hands of the National Trust any time soon.
Dean Hearne1/11Alice and Julian stroll with their dogs past the front of the house.
Dean Hearne2/11Fragrant branches, freshly cut from the arboretum, are brought in to decorate the house.
Dean Hearne3/11The whole family gets involved with the festive preparations – Alice and children Ben, Sam and Marcia collect seasonal greenery from the grounds.
Dean Hearne4/11The bare outlines of trees and elegant statuary create atmospheric vistas in the soft winter light.
Dean Hearne5/11Marcia on her Connemara pony Kizzy in the manège beside the stables.
Dean Hearne6/11Local florist Grace Alexander creates a wreath from natural foraged materials.
Dean Hearne7/11Displays of seasonal foliage and flowers in the great hall.
Dean Hearne8/11The vestibule also has its seasonal displays.
Dean Hearne9/11Alice relaxes with Lucy Duval, Marcia, Sam, Ben and the dogs.
Dean Hearne10/11The candlelit festive table is laid with Dickensian splendour.
Dean Hearne11/11A Queen Anne four-poster creates a striking focal point.
