The Parsonage.

The parsonage is the yellow wooden building at the top of the hill at the end of Telemarksgata. This is one of the few buildings in old Skien that remained standing after the fire in 1886. Here lived the strict and pietistic priest Gustav Adolf Lammers. While Henrik Ibsen made a career as a playwright, friends, acquaintances, and siblings in Skien joined a congregation that claimed theater was sinful. Most of Henrik Ibsen's friends and acquaintances were inspired by the strict and pietistic priest Lammers. Poul Lieungh, to whom Henrik wrote from Grimstad, married the daughter of Priest Lammers. In 1860, after a few years in this free church congregation, Lammers grew very tired of what he called "a pretentious spirituality" among some in the congregation, and he therefore expelled 24 people. Most of them had surnames like Boyesen, Eckstorm, Lieungh, and Ording—all from the Ibsen family's circle. Shortly after, they gathered at Børsesjø, where they were baptized in their newly established congregation. In 1861, Henrik Ibsen's sister, Hedvig, joined this congregation, and a few years later, his younger brother, Ole, also joined.