Description:
The Hermitage is a long range of perpendicular rock, overlooking the vale of the Trent, with houses that have been built against the cliffs, using the caves behind as storage or housing.
The caves which are found here as well as all over Nottingham are one of the most difficult and intricate problems of local archaeology. Some of them are natural; others are artificial, but date back to prehistoric times, others again are mediaeval or even modern cellars. They have always been famous, and Asser, the friend and biographer of King Alfred, writing about 900, tells us that the ancient name for Nottingham was Tiuogobauc, which he translates as meaning ' the cave dwellings.'
The caves at Sneinton are given the name 'Hermitage' which suggests the home of either a 'Dark Age' or Medieval religious recluse.
Thomas William Hammond 1854-1935. Born in Philadelphia of Nottingham emigres, and orphaned at the age of four, he came to England with his younger sister Maria and lived for a short while with his grandparents in Mount Street. In 1868 age 14 he enrolled in the Government School of Art. On the 1871 census he is described as a lace curtain designer, and in 1872 he was awarded the 'Queen's Prize for a Design of a Lace Curtain'. Other prizes followed and in 1877 he was again awarded the Queen's Prize, this time for the design for a damask table Cloth.
Hammond was an indefatigable worker, and soon began to use his skills as a draftsman to record aspects of the changing town. He began showing his work at local venues in 1882 and in 1890 exhibited for the first time at the Royal academy. His real hobby was black and white sketching in charcoal. He drew about 350 pictures all together mainly scenes of a Nottingham he knew but which has largely passed away today.
Extracted from 'The Changing Face of Tom Hammond's Nottingham' by John Beckett which is the introductory essay in 'A City in the Making Drawings of Tom Hammond'.