Garden Hermit

Look, I get that they existed to be gawked at by the upper classes, and all, but. If anyone here is looking for a garden druid/hermit, I would be more than willing to build the barrow, as long as your estate is such that I never have to actually see you. Feel free to gawk all you want as I collect various plants from the area, just don't talk to me.

In all seriousness, that now sounds like a very 'wow look at how out of touch rich people were' sort of thing. . . . That I absolutely could see being a thing today.

Or working from home.

This is amazing. I don't know whether I want one, or want to be one. As an occupation for retired gentlemen, I think it would be very appealing.

We sort of had one growing up, where the family had some land in the country and my parents let a very eccentric man live in a rennovated hippie school bus parked on it, and eventually he built a network of little huts that were each beneath the area threshold where a building permit would be required. He maintained the land and the things we built on it, like tree houses and ziplines over gullies (all farcically unsafe, but a kind of heaven for a 10yr old self and siblings). He lived there until they sold the land, and he moved in with his estranged brother on another piece of land, just the two of them, not speaking for years.

It was certainly less genteel than described in the article, but this pattern hasn't disappeared. People I know with land have had long term tenants on the property, sort of Kato Kaylin long term guest characters, and as a retirement plan, it certainly beats being warehoused in a retirement home.

If there were a deal where I could park an airstream on someone's back 40 in exchange for some minimal property maintenance and gardening into my late 70's and 80's, that sounds appealing. There would probably even be competition, so I should start thinking about how I might interview for such a role that I might prevail over the other ornamental garden hermits.

I am from the region where Francis of Paola[1] lived. He's mentioned as the first example of Garden Hermit in the article.

He's regarded as a very important religious figure in my region and home town. I am quite sure a lot of more conservative people would find the idea that he was an attraction for rich people utterly offensive.

I find this very fascinating because as I grew apart from my catholic upbringing and started questioning things, after visiting Francis' alleged hermitage, I could never shake the thought that it didn't seem very remote, secluded or uncomfortable...

[1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Paola

I'm reminded of The Sidley Park Hermit in Tom Stoppard's beautiful "Arcadia".