16/10/2026
Good afternoon everyone I hope everyone is well .
Sometimes you just need to be alone away from everyone and reset reality this is exactly what I had to do this morning after receiving some sad news .
So early this morning I was at the amazing Anchor church ingleby near Ticknall so after cleaning it up a bit I was able to light It up with some natural lighting. It was just as I hoped not seeing a single person I stayed there for a hour or so then moved on and stopped in Ticknall my way home to go to one of my favourite places the old tramway bridge over the old flooded lime pits.
Anchor Church history
Anchor Church is thought to have derived its name from an Anchorite hermit, St Hardulph, who lived and prayed there in the Anglo-Saxon period. The word anchorite itself is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘to depart into the countryside’.
By the 18th and 19th centuries St Hardulph’s residency had become part of the folklore of the area, with William Woolley describing Anchor Church in 1715 as a ‘most solitary, pleasant place’. However, research in 2021 revealed that is it in fact highly likely that St Hardulph lived there in the 9th century, and that he was not just a saintly hermit but the exiled Anglo-Saxon King Eardwulf.
Eardwulf was deposed from the Northumbrian throne in 806, and lived the remainder of his life as a hermit in the caves of Anchor Church with a group of followers, before his death and burial 5 miles away at Breedon on the Hill in 830. This discovery would make it the oldest intact domestic interior found in Britain.
Local legend tells of another religious inhabitant of the caves. In the later Middle Ages, a deceptive monk named Bernard supposedly occupied them in solitary penance for his sins. He had been paid by the Baron of Boyvill to inform local lord Sir Hugo de Burdett that his wife had been unfaithful to him, as Boyvill himself wished to marry her.
When Burdett heard of this, he flew into a rage, killing Boyvill and cutting off his wife’s hand where her wedding ring was placed. The monk, realising the magnitude of his deceit, fled to Anchor Church in shame where he later died.
Whether Hugo de Burdett is indeed linked to the caves, it is known that in the 18th and 19th centuries the Burdett family of Formarke Hall occupied them for leisurely pursuits.
They enlarged them, fitting a door and steps to the entrance in 1845. By that time Anchor Church was part of the romantic landscape of Formarke, and used a summerhouse by Sir Francis Burdett, who with his family and guests would hold picnics as they admired the views over the Trent Valley.
