A La Ronde is an 18th-century 16-sided house located near Lympstone

Lympstone

Lympstone is a village and civil parish in East Devon in the English county of Devon. It has a population of 1,754. There is a harbour on the estuary of the River Exe, lying at the outlet of Wotton Brook between cliffs of red breccia...

, Exmouth

Exmouth, Devon

Exmouth is a port town, civil parish and seaside resort in East Devon, England, sited on the east bank of the mouth of the River Exe. In 2001, it had a population of 32,972.-History:...

, Devon

Devon

Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, and in the ownership of the National Trust

National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty

The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...

. The house was built for two spinster cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter.

History

The Parminter family, which could be traced back in North Devon as far back as 1600, had acquired considerable wealth as merchants. Jane was the daughter of Barnstaple

Barnstaple

Barnstaple is a town and civil parish in the local government district of North Devon in the county of Devon, England, UK. It lies west southwest of Bristol, north of Plymouth and northwest of the county town of Exeter. The old spelling Barnstable is now obsolete.It is the main town of the...

 wine merchant John Parminter who had a business in Lisbon

Lisbon

Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...

, where she was born in 1750. Jane grew up in London and became guardian to her orphan cousin Mary. On her father's death in 1784, she decided to embark on the Grand Tour

Grand Tour

The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...

 accompanied by her invalid sister Elizabeth, her younger orphaned cousin, and a female friend from London.

The two cousins became greatly attached to each other and in 1795 decided to set up home together in Devon. They negotiated the purchase of fifteen acres of land near Exmouth. Once their house had been built they lived secluded and somewhat eccentric lives for many years until 1811 when Miss Jane died.

The house was completed in about 1796, and its design is supposedly based on the Basilica of San Vitale

Basilica of San Vitale

The Church of San Vitale — styled an "ecclesiastical basilica" in the Roman Catholic Church, though it is not of architectural basilica form — is a church in Ravenna, Italy, one of the most important examples of early Christian Byzantine Art and architecture in western Europe...

. It consisted of 20 rooms, the ground floor ones radiating out from a 10.7 metres (35.1 ft) high hallway, named "The Octagon", and originally connected by sliding doors. The lower ground floor housed a wine cellar, strong room and kitchen and an upper octagonal gallery housed an intricate hand-crafted frieze. Between the main rooms were triangular-shaped closets with diamond shaped windows. Much of the internal decoration was produced by the two cousins, whose handicraft skills were excellent. The house also contained many of the objets d'art, especially shells, which the cousins brought back from their European Tour.

The terms of Mary's will specified that the property could be inherited only by "unmarried kinswomen". This condition held firm until in 1886 the house was transferred to the Reverend Oswald Reichel, a brother of one of the former occupants. Reichel, the sole male owner in over two hundred years, was responsible for substantial structural changes. These included the construction of a water tower and laundry room, the installation of a bathroom and central heating

Central heating

A central heating system provides warmth to the whole interior of a building from one point to multiple rooms. When combined with other systems in order to control the building climate, the whole system may be a HVAC system.Central heating differs from local heating in that the heat generation...

, the construction of upstairs bedrooms with dormer windows, the fitting of first-floor windows, a heavy pulley dumb-waiter and speaking tube

Speaking tube

A speaking tube or voicepipe is a device based on two cones connected by an air pipe through which speech can be transmitted over an extended distance. While its most common use was in intra-ship communications, the principle was also used in fine homes and offices of the 19th century, as well as...

s, the replacement of the original thatch with roof tiles and the addition of an external catwalk.

Since taking ownership, conservation measures by The National Trust have included removal of all but one the very large central heating radiators installed by Reichel, restoration of the wall coverings from a deep red to the original pale green and rigging of the delicate shell gallery on the uppermost storey of the house with a CCTV system to allow observation without risk of damage. The original kitchen and strong room on the lower ground floor now function as a modern kitchen and tea-room.

The gardens are listed as Grade II on the English Heritage

English Heritage

English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...

 Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England

National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens

In England, the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens of special historic interest in England provides a listing and classification system for historic parks and gardens similar to that used for listed buildings. The register is managed by English Heritage under the provisions of the National...

.

Designer

Family tradition maintains that the house was designed by Miss Jane herself. It is more likely, however, that the plans were drawn up by "a Mr. Lowder" mentioned by a 19th century writer. Mary's aunt by marriage, also Mary, had a sister Anne Glass, who married a Commander John Lowder, a banker. In 1778 Lowder became a property developer and built Landsdowne Palace West in Bath.

Commander Lowder, however, had a son, also named John (1781–1829) who practised as a gentlemen architect in Bath. Although only 17 years of age when A La Ronde was built, it is entirely feasible that the younger Lowder designed the house. In 1816 he went on to design the unusual Bath and District National School (demolished 1896), a 32-sided building with wedge-shaped classrooms. A La Ronde may reasonably be interpreted as an early prototype for the much larger later project.

Point-in-View chapel

Although regular attendants at the Glenorchy Chapel in Exmouth, as the two ladies got older they found the journey to worship increasingly difficult. They therefore decided to commission a chapel on their own estate. Although Miss Jane died in 1811, and was buried beneath the chapel, the work continued and the buildings were completed later that year. Inside the chapel are the words "Some point in view - We all pursue". Surrounding the chapel was a small school for six girls and almshouses for four maiden ladies of at least 50 years of age. There was also accommodation for a minister.

The two ladies took a keen interest in the conversion of Jews to Christianity. The deeds for the almshouses expressly stated that any Jewess who had embraced Christianity would have preference over all others as a candidate for a place. The oaks

Oaks

-Horse races:"Oaks" is generally used to describe a Thoroughbred horse race restricted to 3-year-old fillies. Among the best-known races using the term are:*Epsom Oaks, The Oaks Stakes, at Epsom Downs Racecourse, Surrey, England; the original "Oaks" race...

 planted on the estate are still protected by a will drawn up by the Parminter sisters stating that "the oaks shall remain standing until Israel returns and is restored to the land of promise", reflecting the idea, common at the time, that the timber from the trees would be used to build the ships for the return to the promised land. When Miss Mary died in 1849, she too was buried beneath the chapel.

Regular services were still being held at the chapel in 2004. The chapel Trustees meet annually and receive one guinea

Guinea (British coin)

The guinea is a coin that was minted in the Kingdom of England and later in the Kingdom of Great Britain and the United Kingdom between 1663 and 1813...

for their attendance, as laid down by the Parminters. Christenings were held at the chapel and were recorded between 1817 and 1836. The school closed in 1901.

External links

• A La Ronde information at the National Trust