ROPER, Mark 1935-2021
Richard R
He was eldest s of Geoffrey Desmond ROPER 1901-82 whom he succeeded as head of that gentry family of Forde Abbey and Diana Charlotte 1898-1988 d of Maj Arthur Montague KING 1869-ka1915 (gt gs of 6th Lord KING, Baron of OCKHAM 1736-93 gf of 1st Earl of LOVELACE 1805-93 (titles extinct 2018)) and Dorothy Lee CONGREVE 1874-1953 scion of that gentry family of Congreve. He m 1967 Elizabeth Dorothy b 1947 d of Oliver Robin BAGOT 1914-2000 (3xgt gs of 1st Baron BAGOT 1729-1798) and Annette Dorothy STEPHENS 1917-2003, and had three daus.
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....He m 1967 Elizabeth Dorothy b 1947 d of Oliver Robin BAGOT 1914-2000 (3xgt gs of 1st Baron BAGOT 1729-1798) and Annette Dorothy STEPHENS 1917-2003, and had three daus.
colinp
Roper liked to quote from Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard: ‘If we want things to go on as they are, we have to change’
Mark Roper, who has died aged 86, was the devoted custodian for 50 years of Forde Abbey in West Dorset.
The former Cistercian monastery founded in the 12th century was one of England’s richest monastic institutions, and became the property of the Crown during the Dissolution in 1539. It was transformed into a private home a century later by Edmund Prideaux, Oliver Cromwell’s Attorney General.
In the 18th century the house and its estate were the property of Prideaux’s daughter Margaret and her husband Francis Gwyn (who served as Queen Anne’s Secretary of War) and then their descendants, before passing through a succession of owners until it was left to Elizabeth Roper by a cousin. She and her husband, Freeman Roper, moved into the Abbey in 1905.
Mark Roper, born on June 27 1935, was one of four children of Elizabeth’s son Geoffrey and his wife Diana. His growing up at Forde Abbey was in the shadow of wartime, then of post-war austerity, and Geoffrey’s watchword was frugality......
....in 1959, he took over the running of Forde Abbey from his father....
In 2009 Roper and his wife moved into the Home Farm, handing over the stewardship of Forde Abbey to their eldest daughter Alice and her husband Julian Kennard.
Mark Roper served as a High Sheriff of Dorset. He was also Wessex branch chairman of the Historic Houses Association, and twice chairman of the Dorset branch of the Country Landowners’ Association (now the Country Land and Business Association)....
Roper married, in 1967, Lisa Bagot, whose family own Levens Hall, near Kendal in Cumbria, and who survives him with their three daughters, Alice, Victoria and Lucinda. He is buried in the arboretum planted by his father at Forde Abbey after the Second World War.
Mark Roper, born June 27 1935, died September 20 2021
Richard R
Restorer of the magnificent Forde Abbey, a former Cistercian monastery in Dorset, and its gardens
...In his rescue of the ancient building Roper was greatly assisted by his wife, Lisa Bagot, whom he met in 1964 when staying at her family home, Levens Hall in Cumbria. She set about making the abbey far more liveable and welcoming than it had ever been...
...Although Mark Roper was born in London in 1935, Forde was his lifelong home. He was one of four children of Geoffrey Roper and his wife Diana (née King); his siblings were John, Christopher and Charlotte...
...He is survived by Lisa and their three daughters, Alice, Victoria and Lucinda. Alice has taken over the running of the house and estate with her husband; Victoria trained as a garden designer and works in Vancouver Island; Lucinda is a painter married to an estate manager in Gloucestershire...
Mark Roper, custodian of Forde Abbey, was born on June 27, 1935. He died of multiple myeloma on September 20, 2021, aged 86
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mark-roper-obituary-zr9hwcb8p