In a small village in England called Shear, there is a church next to a river.

The church is called St. James's.

It's made of stone.

It has arched windows, and it's surrounded by an old graveyard and trees.

But there's something quite unusual about the Church of St. James, which is that, built into its

walls, are the remains of a cell. So what you've got really is a fairly small area, almost like cupboard-sized.

I think if we kind of envisaged a prison cell today,

it probably got something like, you know, what the anchored cell would be like.

The cell had two small windows and a door,

but this door wasn't really supposed to be used.

Once someone entered this cell, they would be expected never to leave it again.

In the year 1329, almost 700 years ago, a woman named Christine Carpenter was about to move into this cell, permanently.

She was becoming an anchorite.

This was a person who would dedicate their life to prayer in almost total isolation.

The day Christine was locked into her cell would have been a huge occasion for the town of Shear.

The bishop would attend.

There would be people watching.

But Christine may have felt a little

differently about all this, because this was essentially her funeral. And actually, in some ways,

it was literally her funeral. The bishop would rediversion of the office of the dead because

the anchorite was seen to be dead to the world. They were really cut off from the world.

That was a really important aspect of that process.

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