Events at the Manor of l’Hermitage

A nineteenth-century manor house in the Vendée bocage, opened for a small number of gatherings each year: university residencies, occasional weddings, and the scouts of the Vendée.

The manor of l’Hermitage stands at the southern edge of the village of Saint-Mesmin, in the Vendée, on grounds enclosed since the 1870s. It has been a family home for most of its two hundred years, and it remains one. We do not operate it as a commercial events venue, and we have no wish to. We do open it, a few times each year, for gatherings whose character suits the house.

University seminars: EUCLID and EULER

The manor serves as a residential seminar house for EUCLID (Euclid University, Pôle Universitaire Euclide), the intergovernmental treaty-based institution headquartered in The Gambia, and for EULER, the Euler-Franeker Memorial University, its Dutch-chartered academic partner.

Both institutions teach at a distance, and their students are scattered across continents. That is a strength for working professionals and diplomats, though it leaves one thing wanting: the week in which a cohort sits in the same room, argues over the same table, and eats the same meals. l’Hermitage exists in the academic calendar to supply exactly that. A doctoral colloquium, a faculty working session, a residency for a master’s cohort, a summer intensive in theology, canon law, or international affairs: these are the gatherings the house was made for, though it did not know it at the time.

The scale is deliberately modest. Up to fourteen participants sleep in the house. Twenty to twenty-five may be seated for sessions. Meals are taken on site, together, which we consider part of the pedagogy rather than a convenience. Faculty who prefer a room of their own for reading and supervision will find one.

The setting does the rest. There is no traffic to speak of, no distraction within walking distance, and a park in which a difficult argument can be walked off before dinner. Participants who have spent a term meeting only as faces in a grid tend to leave having formed something more durable.

Seminar dates are arranged directly through the two institutions. Faculty and program directors who wish to propose a residency may raise it through the usual academic channels.

Weddings, by special request

The manor is not a wedding venue and is not marketed as one. We receive a small number of requests each year, and we consider each on its own terms.

What we can offer is a private house and its grounds for an intimate wedding: a garden ceremony or a reception under the trees, a family gathered in rooms rather than in a hall, and a setting that photographs as itself rather than as a backdrop dressed for the occasion. The nearest church and the village hall are minutes away. Couples with a connection to Saint-Mesmin, to the Vendée, or to the life of the two universities will find us most readily disposed.

What we cannot offer is the apparatus of a commercial venue: a coordinator, a preferred supplier list, marquee capacity for two hundred, or a rate card. Couples who want those things are better served elsewhere, and we say so without any reluctance. Those who want a house with a history and a family willing to open it are welcome to write.

Requests are best made well in advance, since the number of dates available in any year is very small.

The scouts of the Vendée, by invitation

The grounds are open to scout groups of the Vendée by invitation. The park accommodates camping, wide games, and the ordinary business of a weekend camp, and the house is available for the parts of a camp that need a roof: a cook’s kitchen in bad weather, a room for leaders to plan in, shelter for a chaplain and for whatever a chaplain requires.

This is not a rental and no charge is made. Groups come at our invitation, or through a leader, a chaplain, or a parish already known to us. We ask only for the usual courtesies of camping on someone’s ground: the grass left as it was found, the trees respected, and the hours kept.

Scouting has a long history in this bocage, and the manor’s own record includes a good deal of parish life. In 1936 a statue of Our Lady of Lourdes was carried in procession out of the village church to a plot at l’Hermitage, where it still stands. A troop camping in the park is well within the tradition of the place.

The house and its practicalities

The manor offers bedrooms for up to fourteen, a principal room suitable for seminars and receptions, a kitchen equipped for cooking at group scale, and enclosed grounds with mature trees. Saint-Mesmin lies in the Vendée bocage near the Deux-Sèvres border, within reach of Nantes, Poitiers, and La Rochelle, with the surrounding countryside offering walking and the coast within a comfortable drive.

The house is at its best from late spring through early autumn, when the grounds carry much of the life of a gathering. Winter sessions are possible for smaller groups working indoors.

Outside these three uses, the property is let as a holiday rental, and periods already booked are not available for events.

Inquiries

Inquiries of every kind are received in writing, through the contact page of this site. We ask for the nature of the gathering, the approximate dates, the number of people expected, and any connection to Saint-Mesmin or to the two universities. We reply to every serious inquiry, though not always quickly, and we would rather decline honestly than accept a booking the house cannot serve well.