Geograph - photograph every grid square

A former Cistercian Abbey, and one of the richest in the country, Forde Abbey lay empty for 100 years after the Dissolution of 1539. It was then purchased by Edmund Prideaux, MP for Lyme Regis, a fervent Parliamentarian, and later Oliver Cromwell's Attorney General. It was he who transformed the monastic building into a substantial private residence. The Abbey passed from the Prideaux family by descent to Francis Gwyn and his successors in 1702, who throughout the C18 created the magnificent gardens. On the death of the last of the Gwyn family in 1846, the Abbey and its contents were sold, eventually ending up with the Roper family, the present owners, who moved here in 1905. Grade I Listed.