Big changes are happening at Athelhampton House, which hopes to be a leading light to others.

Thought to be the first ever historic house to go carbon neutral, the Tudor home near Dorchester is getting rid of gas from its site.

Owner Giles Keating said: "At the moment we've got all the usual stuff you would expect - gas boilers, in our commercial kitchens it's got gas ovens, there's an old Aga in the house that's oil fired and we take electricity, like everyone else, off the grid, which is pretty carbon intensive.

"So, all that lot is going and even the diesel lawnmowers are going."

They are replacing it all with solar panels - 130kw in total - and heat pumps.

Mr Keating added: "We're on a historic Grade I listed place and we've got to be really careful, so all the planning permission has been done.

"There are two big solar panel installations, that's mainly being put carefully in a field to the side of the house behind all the trees and bushes and the rest of it is going in our work yard at the back of the garden which isn't usually open to the public.

"The second big bit is the heat pumps. You extract the warmth from the ground or air and we have some of each. We've buried some pipes into the ground in this field next door and you pump water through that and the water comes out a few degrees warmer than when it went in because it's warmed up by the warmth of the ground and then we will have the same thing extracting heat from the air.

"The solar panels and the heat pumps and complementary because in order to operate the heat pumps, you need electricity.

"With this, the whole thing is completely carbon neutral, you're generating electricity from the solar panels and then you're using that to pump the water through and extract that heat.

"We have a battery installation, so if we generate power in the daytime, we can use that to pump this around at night."

There is a large LPG boiler on site that gets filled up every couple of months and a smaller tank for the Aga, both of which are being removed.

Mr Keating said: "There will be no more gas on site at all.

"We think it will be saving more than 100 tonnes of carbon emissions a year."

What encouraged you to make Athelhampton House carbon Neutral?

"There's been very respectable investment over the years but there comes a time when stuff needs renewing anyway, so that was one element. If you're going to be renewing, what do you do? Put in a new gas boiler? Maybe not the best thing to be doing.

"We all need to make our contribution to dealing with the climate problem, so there's definitely a big desire to do something about the climate issues.

"Dorset Council, through its Low Carbon Dorset scheme, is making a grant to part of it, which is very generous of them - it is trying to get people to reduce carbon emissions.

"The idea is also to be a bit of a demonstration, because as far as we know, this will be the first ever historic house of this calibre that has gone carbon neutral and what we're hopeful of is other heritage sites and houses over time may look at what we're doing and say, 'we can do that too', and maybe people in their own houses will take inspiration from it."

The project will finish in stages, with the first round of heat pumps completed next month, followed by the electrical work and solar panels, hopefully running in May, followed by the second round of heat pumps a little later.

To find out more about Athelhampton House, visit Athelhampton.com