In 18th-century Britain, wealthy landowners hired actual human beings to live in their gardens as living ornaments. They were called garden hermits, paid residents installed like particularly brooding topiary, available for guests to "view for entertainment" or "consult for advice."
Charles Hamilton at Painshill Park offered the standard arrangement: a seven-year contract, a stipend, room, and board inside a purpose-built hermitage on the grounds. The hermit was expected to maintain an appropriately reclusive bearing and generally add a note of melancholy to the landscape. One of Hamilton's hires lasted three weeks before he was sacked — caught drinking in a local pub, which rather undermined the mystique.
The Weld family at Lulworth Estate maintained one too. The practice spread widely enough through the Georgian gentry that hermitages became standard features of picturesque garden design, along with grottos, follies, and ornamental bridges. The hermit was just another garden feature — one that required feeding.
The fad died down by the 1830s as fashions shifted and landscaping moved on to other affectations. But for a solid stretch of English horticultural history, a man sitting in a cave in your garden was considered a mark of refinement.
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