Hermit's Cave
Encyclopedia
Griffith, New South Wales
Griffith is a city in south-western New South Wales, Australia. It is also the seat of the City of Griffith local government area. Like the Australian capital, Canberra and the nearby town of Leeton, Griffith was designed by Walter Burley Griffin. Griffith was named after Sir Arthur Griffith the...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, is in fact a complex of stone structures covering an area of 16 hectares.
These structures include shelters, terraced gardens, water cistern
Cistern
A cistern is a waterproof receptacle for holding liquids, usually water. Cisterns are often built to catch and store rainwater. Cisterns are distinguished from wells by their waterproof linings...
s, dry-stone walling and linking bridges, stairways and paths that stretch intermittently across more than a kilometre of the escarpment. The complete structure and landscape was created single-handedly by reclusive Italian migrant Valerio Ricetti
Valerio Ricetti
Valerio Ricetti was an Italian-Australian hermit who lived mainly in a cave in the Griffith area for a period of 23 years. Working only at night and in the early morning hours so that he would not be seen, he turned the cave into his own private "utopia" complete with kitchen, chapel, landscaping,...
who made this place his home between about 1929 and 1952 during that time creating his own private "utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
" using the natural landscape and materials found in the area.
The site is recognised for being a rare example of an Australian hermit's domain and is listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register.