One autumn day, probably in the 1130s, during his midday sleep, this anonymous baker had a vision of the Virgin Mary, who told him to go and live in Depedale and worship God here in solitude. The baker promptly abandoned everything he had and set out for Depedale, not knowing where it was. He was walking through Stanley, when he heard a woman telling a girl to take the calves to Depedale. He asked the woman where Depedale was, and she told him to follow the girl.

When he got here, he found the place to be a marshy forest with no settlements anywhere near. He discovered a cave in the hillside (the present Hermitage) and probably enlarged it, living in the eastern end and using the western end as an oratory or chapel. The Hermitage can be visited today by taking the bridle path to the east of Verger’s Farm; after a couple of hundred yards, sets of steps will be found leading up to the right; the second set takes you to the cave.

The cave now measures about six yards by three and has a doorway between two window holes. There was an altar opposite the oratory door and a niche in the west wall, probably for a lamp; there was also a fireplace in the north-east corner with a chimney vent.

The meeting of Ralph FitzGeremund and the Hermit has all the elements of high drama. Imagine the local nobleman and his hard-riding tough retinue galloping through the forest in search of boar or deer, when suddenly a rustle is heard or a hound gives the alarm, the men hold their fire, and an unkempt and probably terrified man is found lurking in the bushes. However, to Ralph’s credit no damage was done, and the Hermit was encouraged to tell his story. Ralph was impressed by the man’s piety and obedience to God’s will, took pity on his poverty and gave him a small income, the tithe of a mill at Alvaston.  

Incidentally, the obvious drama of this story did not go unnoticed by Victorian writers, who attributed to the Hermit, with no evidence from the Chronicle, a ‘rudely constructed hut’, and the details that he was ‘aged and hairy’ and ‘clothed in rags and skins’.  It does not do to believe all one reads in secondary sources.

Shortly afterwards, the Hermit found a spring (which is still known as the Hermit’s well, but is on private land). It is now a stone-sided pool, but in Victorian times the site was a quagmire producing a luxuriant crop of watercress. The Hermit is said to have blessed his discovery, saying it would be a cure for ills for everyone: there are legends saying that the well effects cures on Good Friday between 12 and 3 p.m., and never runs dry.  

Not content with his sumptuous cave, the Hermit built a small chapel or oratory ‘near the well’. The little church currently known as All Saints’, Dale Abbey, stands about 100 yards away from the well. This juxtaposition has led people to surmise that the Hermit’s oratory was on the site of All Saints’: more of that later.