Hermits are generally imagined to be solitary recluses, who adopted an isolated life to focus on spiritual matters. Yet little is known about the lives of individual hermits, which are first mentioned in Britain about 700 CE. Most surviving ‘hermitages’ are natural or man-made caves, and a remarkable feature of our region is the four hermitages on the route of the Portway; two in Nottingham and two in Derbyshire. This distribution suggests that the hermits who lived there helped travellers on the road, either with practical information or possibly with their religious issues. Hermitages were sometimes linked to a monastery or abbey, and in our case one was connected with Lenton Abbey west of Nottingham, while Dale Hermitage was a forerunner to Dale Abbey, built close by.

Sneinton Hermitage, a mile east of the centre of Nottingham, is cut into the sandstone rock on which much of the town was built. It is now protected by steel railings, and was apparently larger before the site was developed by railway construction. Travellers disembarking from boats on the River Trent would have approached the town this way.

The second hermitage, illustrated in the painting but wrongly described as ‘druidical remains’, is now on private ground behind a modern block of flats on Castle Boulevard. Hermitage Walk, a street in the Park above, used to give access to the caves, which, judging by the painting, were given a parkland setting at some point. The most unusual feature of this group of caves is a rock-cut chapel known as St Mary de la Roche, which may have been the work of friars and could have been a pilgrimage centre before the site was acquired by the monks of Lenton Abbey in the thirteenth century.

The third hermitage, and the most accessible, is in an idyllic woodland setting near Dale in southeast Derbyshire. At this point the Portway descends a steep slope, and a hermit could have given travellers practical guidance. The photo shows a series of holes cut in the rock face above the door, which presumably allowed a wooden extension to be built in front of the cliff face. According to legend, a Derby baker was told in a dream to come and live in Depedale, and he was the predecessor to the monks who established the Abbey, now almost entirely demolished, in about 1200 CE.

Cratcliffe Hermitage can be found by forking off the main path up to Robin Hood’s Stride on Harthill Moor. It’s a bit of a scramble to reach it, but the position is spectacular, looking back over the Portway towards Winster. The rock opening is flanked by two old yew trees, presumably planted in the nineteenth century, and railings protect the remarkable carved crucifix on the wall inside. Unusually, there is a record in the accounts of Haddon Hall (only two miles away) of the hermit selling rabbits to their kitchen in 1550, so apparently he had survived the Dissolution of a few years earlier.

Taken together, these four sites provide a possibly unique insight into the reality of medieval travel. Among the various types of wayfarers would have been pilgrims, heading for shrines in Dale or Lenton Abbeys, who may have supported the hermits in return for their prayers for a successful journey. Other travellers would have been glad of information about the next stage of the journey, and possibly suggestions about where to find food and shelter for the night.