Before the Trust: One Volunteer’s Personal Memories

Some of A la Ronde’s volunteers have a deep-rooted connection to the property, stretching back to its days before National Trust ownership. Gill Laws, a former teacher at an Exmouth primary school, first encountered the house in the early 1970s when she received a letter from Ursula Tudor-Perkins, the last private owner, inviting school groups to visit. This gesture sparked a long-lasting connection with the 16-sided home and years later, Gill remains a volunteer, sharing stories of A la Ronde’s Pre-Trust era with visitors who are eager to hear about its past.
I taught a class of children who were aged 7-9 years and thought that A la Ronde would make a great conclusion to a topic on 'Houses', so I arranged to visit myself and to meet Ursula. On this visit it was obviously a private home and not like the property of today, but I could see the potential for the children and the work which could follow.

The annual visit I made with my class was such a success for many children over the years. In those days we were able to walk safely up an array of footpaths (now long gone) from the school to A la Ronde. A whole day allowed the groups to change location and cover all three activities . A picnic lunch was enjoyed while we studied the view, where they could learn the names of the places we could see across the estuary – much more was visible as all the trees have had 50 years of growth since then! Over the years I got to know Ursula and her son Jonathon, who showed us round, when home on holiday from university. A particular privilege was our tour of the shell gallery.

Ursula then displayed all their work in the barn which led to an increase of visitors as the children took their parents up to see their work. I always found it interesting to see how she used the rent table to take visitor entrance money, which helped towards the upkeep of the property. When I took my family and/or visitors there, she had a ritual with all who came. She would sit the group on the drop down door seats round the octagon and, when she took their money, she would ask their family name and take a ticket out of the appropriate drawer for this name, open the centre, via a secret release in one of the drawers, and drop the money in to where it was secure. It was kept there until she emptied the bag in the pedestal, after the property closed. She used this time in the octagon to give background information about A la Ronde to the visitors.

I am so pleased to have had this pre NT ownership experience of A la Ronde. It encouraged me to become a volunteer, when the NT was appealing for volunteers after buying it, which was unusual because at this time the NT did not usually buy properties. As an Exmouth resident and a lover of A la Ronde, I was afraid it would be lost to the property developers, who were offering Ursula great sums of money for the site, but she stuck to her original price, as long as it was kept as a property open to the public, which I think was £720,000 to include the contents, and the NT agreed to buy it after much persuasion by many of us local residents, who were NT members. Hence why we have it still for so many to enjoy.