The Dutch Hermitage Folly (1760-1850) in a European context: Origins, Architecture, and Meaning of the Hermit’s Hut in the Landscape Garden

Abstract

The phenomenon of a hermitage in a landscape garden has not yet been studied from a transnational historical perspective. In this article we present a European architectural history of the hermitage, paying special attention to Dutch hermitages mentioned in digitised newspapers and other historical sources. The long European history of the hermitage shows that this 18th-century landscape garden folly does not, as is often believed, have an exclusively English origin. The Dutch examples affirm this, although they depart from the standard hermitage narrative in generally being neither royal nor noble. Indeed, they were primarily an urban phenomenon, built predominantly by burghers near cities. As a result, the architecture of the hermit’s hut and its meaning in the landscape garden are different from those in other countries.