This place is prison. The cell was the size of a large cupboard. There wasn't enough room to lie down. I'd come late on a winter afternoon. The light was seeping away. What light there was came through the squint, the small window that looked onto the sanctuary. It was a cruciform shape,

and through it I could see a single candle standing on the altar.

I turned on the torch on my phone.

In front of the squint was an oak shelf,

with a dark circle on its edge where the wood had been rubbed smooth.

Above it was a notice that read,

Please put nothing on the ancient sill. This was the prayer desk of the anchorites for several

centuries. I knelt in front of it. If the floor had been the same height in the medieval period,

the desk would have been too high for an anchorite

to rest their elbows on. Had the indentation been made by pairs of hands, gripping the edge of the ledge?

I wondered at those pairs of hands. This cell had been a coffin to its inhabitants. Once inside, they were never to come out.

They may have been buried beneath my feet, in this tiny anchor hold, in the Church of St. Nicholas

in the village of Compton in Surrey. An anchorite, or anchoress, permanently encloses themselves

in a cell to live a life of prayer and contemplation.

The word comes from the Greek, anahorain, meaning to retire or retreat.

Anchoritism emerged in the late 11th century in tandem with a monastic reform movement

and a growth in spiritual enthusiasm that is sometimes referred

to as the medieval reformation. In the Middle Ages in England, as elsewhere in Europe, the practice

was not uncommon. There were around 100 recluses across the country in the 12th century.

Over the 13th century, the figure increased to 200. Women significantly

outnumbered men by as much as three to one. I came out of the church and into the empty churchyard.

Except for the sound of passing cars, I was alone. The anchorites who had lived in the cell probably rarely

...