The Backstory: Weird trends: from live ornamental hermits to garden gnomes

Ever been in a spot where you'd do almost anything to make money? Imagine somebody putting out a want ad to hire an old seedy looking guy to live in the garden at their home. It's true! The ornamental hermit was all the rage among rich folks in the 18th century. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Just when you think you've heard of every crazy job
there's ever been, here's a new one for you. Okay,
if you're like me, there's a good chance you love
the tranquility of just being out in nature. But what
if you could literally live in a beautiful garden. You
could dress like a mess. I do that all the time.
Do no work? Well, I work and get money a

(00:21):
little house and food just to live that way. This
was a real job description on some massive estates back
in the seventeenth, eighteenth and a little bit of the
nineteenth century in France, Italy and England. How nuts is that?
I'm Patty Steele from Real Live Ornamental Hermits to the
beloved garden Nome. Next on the backstory. We're back with

(00:46):
the backstory. Can you imagine living in a massive estate
in gardens in seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe, gorgeous surroundings,
room and board, all paid for and really no work
at all. Well, a guy known only by the name
mister Remington took a job like that back in the
eighteenth century, and he wasn't alone except in the garden. Yeah,

(01:08):
it was a popular job back then in England, particularly
because all the rage among wealthy aristocrats to have your
very own ornamental hermit kind of hidden out in your garden. Now.
A perfect example is mister Remington's employer, Charles Hamilton, whose
dad was an earl. Charles was an eighteenth century British

(01:29):
aristocrat and member of Parliament. Like a lot of rich
young guys, after finishing up school at Oxford, he went
on a grand tour of Europe for months and months
and parts of Asia, and while running around he collected
statues and paintings from all over. So when he got
home to England, he bought land and he built his
estate called pains Hill. So he has all these ancient

(01:52):
artifacts in his luggage right, and he's fallen in love
with Italian and French romance and the beauty of nature.
His idea was to take some of the exotic plants
he'd seen and create what he called living paintings in
a new and very different kind of a garden, less
of the neatly manicured gardens of the past and more

(02:12):
of the wild, informal gardens that were becoming hugely popular
among the young rich. He called it the Pleasure Grounds
at Paines Hill. The garden had a path to follow,
so if you were a guest, you could become emotionally
involved and experience all sorts of moods as you walked
around Charles living painting. He built a fourteen acre serpentine

(02:34):
lake with a ton of bridges and a water wheel
to bring water to the lake from a nearby river.
He had Greek style temples built and the crystal Grotto,
a man made cave. There were natural woodlands, vineyards of
ruined abbey and towers, but it wasn't enough. He needed
something more. So he took out a wand ad and

(02:55):
was really explicit in what he was looking for. He
wanted an ornamental hermit to live on the hundreds of
acres of gardens at his estate. Now, the hermit had
to remain silent, never even talking to the servants who
brought him his meals every day. He had to wear
a goat's hair robe and never cut his hair, nails,
or beard, and never bathe. Yuck. Now that would be

(03:18):
a no go for me. And shoes were a total
no no, out of the question. He sounds kind of
like a teenager right now. In many cases, on other estates,
the hermit had a more involved job they'd be asked
to remain permanently on site, but they'd be fed and
cared for, and also consulted for advice, counseling, prayer sessions

(03:39):
and inspirational chats. Of course, all of this was for
the entertainment of family and guests. Now in some cases,
as with Charles Hamilton's hermit they were told not to
communicate with visitors and just be part of the scenery.
They were living garden ornaments. Hey, it was a job, right.
Mister Remington liked the idea, and he applied for the

(04:00):
job at pains Hill. If he lived up to the
terms of his contract, living in solitary contemplation without stepping
foot outside of the estate for seven years, he'd lived
for free and finally receive up to in today's money,
one hundred and fifty thousand bucks. While mister Remington was hired, however,

(04:21):
he lasted just a fraction of that time. In fact,
three weeks after moving into the hermitage, he was found
drinking at a local pub. He got the boot. No
word on whether he was replaced by someone more reliable.
Mister Remington was one of a handful of men to
cash in on or try to cash in on the
ornamental hermit craze. The short lived trend peaked around the

(04:44):
mid sixteen hundreds ended around eighteen thirty. During that time,
wealthy estate owners wanted wild, untamed gardens to inspire people
through nature. They built these gardens around caves, mountains, aviaries,
and zoos whose filled with exotic animals. But the hermitage
with live hermits was the ultimate, the must have for

(05:07):
those who could afford it. It was basically about wealthy
people who lived in the lap of luxury wanting some
connection to the simple life without actually giving up all
the luxury. It's a little bit like Marie Antoinette escaping
to the peasant village she built at Versailles. Right, As
one observer wrote, nothing could give such delight to the

(05:27):
eye as the spectacle of an aged person with a
long gray beard and a rough robe, doddering about amongst
the discomforts and the pleasures of nature. As garden and
estate fashions evolved, live hermits became, I don't know, kind
of passe. There were even more statues, water features, and

(05:47):
elaborate flower gardens, as well as exotic tree landscapes, and finally,
the live hermits were banished altogether, and the much less
expensive but far less interesting stone and eventual plastic garden
nomes arrived. I guess you get your inspiration wherever you
can write, and by the way, you can actually still

(06:08):
visit the pains Hill Gardens if you're ever in the neighborhood.
It's in Combham, England. I hope you like the Backstory
with Patty Steele. I would love it if you would
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and feel free to dm me if you have a

(06:28):
story you'd like me to cover. On Facebook, It's Patty
Steele and on Instagram Reel Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele.
The Backstories a production of iHeartMedia, Premiere Networks, the Elvis
Duran Group and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Doug Fraser.
Our writer Jake Kushner. We have new episodes every Tuesday

(06:49):
and Friday. Feel free to reach out to me with
comments and even story suggestions on Instagram at Real Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
to the back Story with Patty Steele. The pieces of
history you didn't know you needed to know