A brief history of garden gnomes

What is the origin of the garden gnome?

Statues have been a feature of European gardens since at least the Renaissance. Saints, gods and mythical creatures were all depicted, and in the 17th century one particularly popular character was Gobbi, which is Italian for ‘dwarf’ or ‘hunch-back’. The inspiration for the figures of today – small men with beards and pointed hats – can be found in European folklore, which told tales of gnomes, little folk who brought good luck and helped farmers, housewives and miners. In the mid-19th century, companies in Germany began to create porcelain representations of them, which they dubbed Gartenzwerge or ‘garden dwarfs’.

Who introduced garden gnomes to Britain?

Sir Charles Isham is the man we have to thank (or blame). The owner of Lamport Hall in Northamptonshire, he was a passionate landscape gardener whose pet project was an enormous rockery. While on a visit to Nuremberg in 1847 he acquired 21 terracotta gnomes and, on his return to Lamport, he installed the gnomes, who were carrying spades and pickaxes or pushing wheelbarrows, in the rockery as if they were mining it – with the exception of three little chaps who had downed tools and were displayed with a placard calling for better pay and conditions.