A La Ronde

A La Ronde

A La Ronde is a sixteen-sided house near the village of Lympstone, near Exmouth, in Devon, in south-west England . It is now owned by the National Trust . The house was originally built for two unmarried cousins, Jane and Mary Parminter.

history

The Parminter family, whose family tree in North Devon can be traced back to the 17th century, had become wealthy through trade. Jane Parminter was the daughter of the wine merchant John Parminter from Barnstaple , who had a branch in Lisbon , where she was born. She grew up in London and became the guardian of her orphaned cousin Mary. After the death of her father in 1784, she went on the Grand Tour accompanied by her physically disabled sister Elizabeth, her cousin Mary and another friend .

In 1795 the two cousins Jane and Mary decided to settle in Devon together. For this purpose, the two women bought a plot of around 60,000 square meters to build a residential building there. According to family tradition, it was Jane Parminter herself who designed A La Ronde . It is likely, however, that a distant relative, John Lowder, who worked as an architect in Bath , designed the house, or at least supported Jane Parminter. Lowder was only 17 years old when A La Ronde was planned , but years later designed the Bath and District National School , an unusual building with 32 sides and wedge-shaped classrooms. A La Ronde can be seen as an early prototype of the larger project that was realized in Bath in 1816 and demolished in 1896.

About the following year, 1796, the house was completed; it consisted of a total of 20 rooms. The center of the house is a 10.70 m high octagonal hall, the Octagon , which was probably modeled on the Basilica of San Vitale in Ravenna . From this hall there were eight rooms on the first floor, between each of which was a triangular chamber with a diamond-shaped window. The rooms were originally connected to one another by sliding doors. In the basement there was a wine cellar, a vault and the kitchen. Much of the interior was made by the two cousins, who were extremely skilled in their craftsmanship. The house contained many works of art as well as numerous shells that the two women had collected on their trip to Europe. A raised gallery runs around the octagon, the walls of which are adorned with a frieze of 25,000 shells.

After the house was completed, Jane and Mary Parminter lived there in seclusion until Jane's death in 1811.

Mary Parminter's will stipulated that property could only be bequeathed to unmarried female relatives. This clause was followed until 1886 when the house passed to Reverend Oswald Reichel, a brother of one of the previous residents. Reichel, the only male owner of the house for over 200 years, had extensive renovations carried out, including a water tower, a laundry room, a bathroom, central heating, bedrooms with dormer windows in the attic, a dining elevator and speaking pipes. The original thatched roof was replaced by a tiled roof with a surrounding viewing gallery.

After the National Trust took over the building, they removed all but one of the huge radiators that Reichel had installed for reasons of monument protection. The now deep red walls got their original light green color back. The shell gallery can be viewed on video today.

The building is a Grade I building under monument protection. The gardens are listed on English Heritage's National Register of Historic Parks and Gardens .

Point-in-View chapel

Jane and Mary Parminter regularly visited Glenorchy Chapel in Exmouth, but as the two women got older they found it difficult to get there. So they decided to have their own chapel built on their property. Jane Parminter died in 1811 and was buried in the chapel under construction, which was completed later that year. Next to the chapel there was a small school for six girls and a poor house for four unmarried women who had to be at least 50 years old until 1901. There was also accommodation for a clergyman. In 1849 Miss Mary was also buried in the chapel.

The two women were very interested in converting Jews to Christianity . The foundation charter expressly states that every Jewish woman who turned to Christianity should definitely be preferred to all other candidates for a place in the foundation. The oaks planted on the property are protected by the written will of the Parminter cousins, which states that "these oaks should be preserved until Israel is resurrected as the promised land". Behind this was the idea that was widespread at the time that the wood of the trees should be used to build ships and return with them to the promised land.

Regular services were held in the chapel until 2004; baptisms also took place between 1817 and 1836. The chapel's curators meet annually and receive a guinea for their presence, as established by the Parminters.