Two miles from Repton is Anchor Church, where are the remains of a hermitage in a singular rocky bank, rising abruptly above the pastures on the verge of the Trent. "The summit is clothed with overhanging woods, forming only a portion of the high grounds, but the suddenness of the change which the scenery derives from the appearance of precipitous and broken rocks, occurring in the midst of a soft and beautiful region of pastoral luxuriance, is very striking. A curious series of chambers, communicating with each other, has been at some distant period beyond tradition excavated in that portion of the rock which is most naked and precipitous; and from this circumstance the site has been designated Anchor Church, signifying the residence of a hermit. At a distance it bears a very close resemblance to a Gothic ruin; the rude openings formed to admit light into the several cells, and the ruggedly fashioned doorway aiding, at first sight, the appearance of an artificial pile of grey antiquity. The rock is found principally to consist of rough grit-stone, and of a congeries of sand and pebbles. The Trent, which now flows at a short distance, formerly ran close under the rock, as is indicated by a dead pool of water situate near its foot, and communicating with the channel of the river. "A tall flight of steep steps rudely fashioned of large unshapen blocks of stone, conducted to the entrance of the hermitage, and the dim light within its hoary, moss-grown, sloping walls is admitted through irregularly formed apertures, pierced through the dense body of the rock, and command magnificent views of the subjacent scenery." [Footnote: Bigsby (R.), "Historical and Topographical Description of Repton in the County of Derby," Lond. 1854.] In the month of August 1742, when occasion arose for setting a post in a "Mercat House" at Royston in Hertfordshire in order to place a bench on it for the convenience of the market women, the men in digging struck through the eye or central hole of a millstone, laid underground, and on raising this found that it occupied the crown of a cave sixteen feet deep, as appeared by letting down a plumb line. There was a descent into it of about two feet wide, with holes cut in the chalk at equal distances, and succeeding each other like the steps of a ladder. It was accurately circular. They let a boy down, and from his report of its passing into another cavity, a slender man with a lighted candle descended, and he confirmed the report, and added that the second cave was filled with loose earth, which, however, did not quite touch the wall, which he could see to right and left.