THE FEW EXAMPLES of current archaeological research evaluating anchorite cells focus on squints, the most common surviving feature in English parish churches. Squints are small windows usually cut into the chancel that allow an anchorite to view the Eucharist—an essential devotional aspect of the vocation. The thir-teenth-century Ancrene Wisse (Guide for Anchoresses) indicated a cell should have three windows, including a squint, and that these windows should be blocked with a curtain or shutter when not in use to prevent worldly temptations. My analysis builds on this research and emphasizes archaeological context. Archaeological features must be interpreted in relation to other features or artifacts—without this context, interpretation is fragmentary. Interpreting squints within their full context offers new perspectives of the lived experience of anchorites, as illustrated by the surviving features at St. John the Baptist in the settlement of Ruyton-XI-Towns in the Welsh Marches of England.

David Cranage's 1912 account provides a particularly detailed archaeological description of the Ruyton cell. The cell's anchoritic archaeology was also briefly compared to other anchorite squints in 1909, 1938, and 1965, demonstrating that it was well known and that Cranage's interpretation of the features as anchoritic was accepted. In 2012, Mari Hughes-Edwards also interpreted the features as anchoritic, while the current church pamphlet describes the cell as “a hermit's chamber.” These sources focused on two features: a square blocked-in squint measuring 27.5 cm × 27 cm, placed in the internal north wall of the chancel, and an external filled-in arched recess enveloping the squint (see Figures 10.1 and 10.2). In isolation, the squint and recess cannot provide more complex interpretation. However, evaluating these features within their archaeological context demonstrates how the construction of this particular cell and its connection to this individual church influenced anchoritic lived experience. Internal and external features offer key information about how the medieval church differed from the modern building, and they provide a sense of how the anchorite would have interacted with the rest of the church building—and, by extension, the church community—through the cell.