Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden
The Roman Catholic hermitage of Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden is situated in the former Reformed church of Warfhuizen, a village in the extreme north of the Netherlands. It is the only Dutch hermitage currently inhabited by a hermit. The name draws upon the traditional epithet for the Virgin Mary of hortus conclusus or enclosed garden, a reference to the Song of Songs that indicates the Virgin's "perpetual virginity and at the same time her fruitful maternity".
Hermitage-church of Warfhuizen
The enclosure-grill
The great cross, a recent copy after the Italian sculptor Pietro Tacca
Hermitage (religious retreat)
A hermitage most authentically refers to a place where a hermit lives in seclusion from the world, or a building or settlement where a person or a group of people lived religiously, in seclusion. Particularly as a name or part of the name of properties its meaning is often imprecise, harking to a distant period of local history, components of the building material, or recalling any former sanctuary or holy place. Secondary churches or establishments run from a monastery were often called "hermitages".
Hermitage used by Charles de Foucauld in the Hoggar (Algeria)
A hermitage at Painshill Park.
Trinity hermitage at San Miguel de Aralar, Uharte-Arakil, Navarre.
Hermitage "Our Lady of the Enclosed Garden" in Warfhuizen, the Netherlands