Garden hermit

Garden hermits or ornamental hermits were hermits encouraged to live in purpose-built hermitages, follies, grottoes, or rockeries on the estates of wealthy land-owners, primarily during the 18th century. Such hermits would be encouraged to dress like druids and remain permanently on-site, where they could be fed, cared-for and consulted for advice or viewed for entertainment.

Professor Gordon Campbell, of the University of Leicester, suggests that Francis of Paola was among the first of the trend, living as a hermit in the early 15th century in a cave on his own father's estate. He later served as a confidant and advisor to King Charles VIII. Thereafter, throughout France, estates of dukes and other lords often included small chapels or other buildings where a resident religious hermit could remain in attendance. According to Campbell, the first estate with a well-known hermitage (which included a small house, chapel and garden) was Château de Gaillon, renovated by Charles Cardinal de Bourbon during the 16th century.

Garden hermits became popular with British aristocracy during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Contemporary accounts suggest the Weld family kept an ornamental hermit in a purpose-built hermitage on the Lulworth Estate in Dorset. Of equivalent novelty, the Welds also maintained a "mimic" fort and harbour beside an adjoining lake. Both Painshill and Hawkstone Park were said to have employed ornamental hermits.

The trend continued through to the 1830s, when the idea became less popular as estate landscaping concepts evolved.

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