She is the eldest daughter and co-heiress of the Honorable John Acland-Hood, a
barrister and his wife, Phyllis (née Hallett), Elizabeth Acland-Hood. She studied at
Cheltenham Ladies' College and
Girton College, Cambridge. Her father was himself a younger son of
Alexander Fuller-Acland-Hood, 1st Baron St Audries. Having graduated from the
University of Cambridge, Acland-Hood worked as a schoolteacher, teaching
mathematics. In 1967 she inherited from an uncle her family's ancestral
seat,
Fairfield House, near
Stogursey, Somerset, and gave up her teaching career to concentrate on managing the estate which came with it. In 1975, she married
Sir Michael Gass KCMG, who died in 1983. He was a former
High Commissioner for the Western Pacific (1969–71) and
Governor of the
Solomon Islands (1969–73), and they had no children. From 1989 to 1993 she was Chairman of the
Exmoor National Park Committee and at the same time was Vice-Chairman of the county council's Social Services Committee. In 1994 she was
High Sheriff of Somerset, the next year was appointed a
Deputy Lieutenant for Somerset, and in 1996 was promoted to
Vice Lord-Lieutenant and appointed as a
Justice of the Peace for the county. In 1998, she became Lord Lieutenant of Somerset, a position she held until March 2015. In 2011, she attracted considerable negative attention after selling some 230 acres of land on the coast beneath the
Quantock Hills for about £50 million. The land was the part of her Fairfield estate lying immediately to the west of the
Hinkley Point power station and was wanted for the construction of two new nuclear reactors. • Vice-President Wessex Reserve Forces' and Cadets' Association 1998–2015 • Trustee, Calvert Trust Exmoor • Patron, Somerset Churches Trust ==Personal life==