European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 05, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Great Britain family makes do1 with country Home 1,500 acres. And a ghost -5it s not exactly Homey but it is still Home to Mark Roper wife Elizabeth and their daughters Alice Victoria and Luanda. The gardens Are splendid the Abbey glows like Gold and it is open to the Public fora Price. It also has a ghost last seen a generation ago. Welcome to Forde Abbey. By Graham Heathcote the associated press what is it like to live in an 850-year-old English country House with tapestries Woven from drawings by Raphael and gardens dating from the Early 18th Century these Days it s like living Over the shop said Mark Roper the owner of splendid Forde Abbey in Chard  survival of the House depends on the admission fees of tourists and Roper expects More than 40,000 of them this year. It has the same problems As other houses drains burst machines break Down there Are people about Roper said but sometimes i look at the tapestries and say to myself goodness me the five 16th-Century tapestries the most important works of Art in the House Are new testament scenes As painted by Raphael for what Are now the Vatican museums in Rome. Roper sitting in an armchair in the drawing room facing South Over lawns Flower Beds and stately Trees recited the Abbey s history. This room is exactly As Prideaux left it in 1659, except for the electric lamps he said. Edmund Prideaux who was Oliver Cromwell s attorney general converted what had been monastic buildings into a House. He was a country lawyer with an Eye for the main Chance Roper said. Whether he was Given it or stole it we Don t know but he came out of the Brouhaha of an executed King Charles and he did it  four yellow Labrador and a Lakeland terrier Trot in smelling wet. It Rains quite a lot Here. Good for strawberries said Roper who is thinking of extending his Strawberry Fields a Cash crop. It s a big House 100 Yards from end to end 60 or 70 rooms Roper said. Not a lot. I forget How Many. There s a debate about what s a room. Quite Large rooms Are often Broom  nor is the 1,500-acre estate considered Large. An old aristocrat once said it was the worst of both worlds Sci have a Large House with a Small estate Roper said. The grandees of the past said you needed 1,000 acres or every  but somehow Roper wife Elizabeth and their daughters Alice Victoria and Lucinda manage to make do with the space they have. Forde Abbey is in the West country just inside Dorset on the South Bank of the River axe. Mark Roper stands in front of his historic House the 850-year-old Forde Abbey. This is a deeply Rural England of Green pastures and villages and farms hidden along roads meandering Between Steep hedged Banks smothered with White Flowers of cow Parsley. Forde Abbey is Long and Low battled enter and towered with gothic windows. Cistercian monks founded the Abbey in 1141 on Good Farmland and continued building for 400 years. Baldwin its third Abbot became archbishop of Canterbury. He crowned King Richard i in 1189 and died accompanying him on the third crusade. The cistercians were great agriculturists Way ahead of the locals and they understood water Roper said. So there is a Spring that feeds waterfalls and Ponds. Like other monasteries the Abbey was seize d in 1539 by King Henry Chi after he separated England from the Pope in Rome. But the buildings unusually survived inside a newer fagade of Ham Stone fashioned to the taste of succeeding owners. The locally quarried Stone glows like Gold when the Sun is on it. Roper 5 7, is a tall Alert Man with a questioning expression trained in estate management at Cambridge University. He is the third generation at Forde which his grandmother inherited from a Distant Cousin. When the government began to offer Grants for houses like this after world War ii my father almost Are roofed the whole House Roper said. They would give up to 90 percent of the Cost but it s not like that  in the Cloisters he Points out an old window that Cost nearly $18,000 to repair when the panes began coming out. My father used to open Only six Days a year at first and extended it to 12 Days to get Grants Roper said. He survived Here by the sweat of his brow and had a spartan life. No heating. He got up at 6 30 every Day and he did t care if the Trees produced a crop in 30 years or 230. He was a Gardener by inclination a great plants  a visit to the gardens costs $4.50, or to the House and gardens $6.45. Children get in free. A leisurely tour takes 3vi hours. Elizabeth Roper looks after a Herd of Ruby Rich Devons kept for beef uncommon survivors of what was once a predominant Breed in the West country. Ghosts Roper said his family has never seen anything but his father who was 8 at the time claimed he saw a Monk in the dining room. He recalled it to the end of his Days Roper said. His parents said yes yes yes to Stop him thinking about it. But what was interesting was that he said the Monk was wearing a White habit with a Black Scapula. Now if he had t seen anything. He would have been much More Likely to say the Monk was in a Brown habit tied with a White Cord because that s what monks usually look like. But the White and Black that s the habit of the cistercians. Nobody has seen anything since. Perhaps the to chased them out to stripes Magazine August 5, 1993