The building that was used by the community until 2009 was erected as a country house between 1844 and 1847, and was sold by Lt Col Sir John Dunnington-Jefferson in 1955 to the Carmelite Sisters of Exmouth.
Guy Waldo Dunnington (January 15, 1906, Bowling Green, Missouri – April 10, 1974, Natchitoches, Louisiana) was a writer, historian and professor of German known for his writings on the famous German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss.
Noyes was Dean of Argyll and The Isles from 1883 to 1886 and later held incumbencies at Long Crichel with Moor Crichel and then Dunnington.
In 1940 Coleman met Portlaoise textile chemist N. J. Dunnington, who joined him in explorations of caves in South Cork.