The Hermitage, Manor House demesne, Manor Farm, Loughgall, Co Armagh

The Hermitage is a late Georgian folly situated within the demesne of Loughgall Manor House in the townland of Lisneany, County Armagh. Constructed between 1800 and 1819, it is a rare example of the “Picturesque” movement in garden and landscape design within Northern Ireland, with only three similar structures known at Loughgall, Tollymore, and Rostrevor.

This single-storey structure is built of rubble masonry, designed to emulate a rustic hermitage and integrated into the south face of a hillock. It features an earthen mounded roof, roughly flat over the entrance passage and domed in a hexagonal shape over the main chamber, with a layer of rubber sheeting beneath the grass covering. A small hexagonal cap made of dark-coloured perspex sits atop the domed mound. The walls are constructed of limestone rubble, incorporating glacially shaped river-worn rocks to create a deliberately naturalistic appearance. The entrance, facing south, is a narrow doorway with a roughly shouldered arched opening, now containing a modern flat steel trellis-work door and frame. Two windows are set into the main domical chamber: one roughly triangular arched and the other segmental arched, both with recessed modern flat steel trellis-work grilles. A prominent rustic buttress is positioned between these windows.

The structure is set within a wooded area within the Loughgall Manor House demesne, accessible via a rough path from an estate road. Its design deliberately blurs the line between the natural and manmade, giving the impression of growing organically from the surrounding rocks and woodland. The precise date of construction is unknown, although it appears on an Ordnance Survey map of 1860 and may stylistically date from as early as the late 18th century.