The Hermitage

The Hermitage. . , The Hermitage had several owners before it was acquired by George Gordon Browne Leith (1812 -1887) in 1855. Mr. Leith, a wealthy Irish-born Scottish immigrant, settled his family on the land because of its proximity to the privileges of the British upper class establishment in the Hamilton area. It was also a fitting location because its rolling hills and gentle streams brought back emotional memories of the Scottish landscape. He built a large stone house with limestone quarried from the property. The Leiths used the Hermitage as a summer residence and spent the winters in either Hamilton or Scotland. Eleanor Alma Dick-Lauder, the only one of the five Leith children to be born in Canada, was devoted to her family's home. Even after its destruction by fire in 1934, she built a modest house within its ruins and lived there alone until her death in 1942. The ruins of the Hermitage, found on the Headwaters Trail, are all that remain of the graceful splendour of the Leith estate. The Gatehouse museum, part of the original estate, housed the gatekeeper and his family. It now exhibits artifacts excavated from the ruins which tell the story of the Leith family.