Apparently the cave was originally a shaft for burial or for rubbish, and a hole in the side and floor that Dr. Stukeley took for a grave was nothing but a continuation downwards of the ancient shaft, as is proved by what has been found in it. But in mediaeval times the puticolus was enlarged and converted into a hermitage, and a hermit is known to have occupied it till the eve of the Reformation, for in the Churchwarden's book of the parish of Bassingborne, under the date 1506, is the entry, _"Gyft of 20d. recd, off a Hermytt depting at Roiston in ys pysh"_ It is true that this entry does not absolutely fix the residence of the hermit at the cave, but it is hardly probable that there were two hermitages in so small a town.
The cave was probably filled in with earth in 1547 and 1550, when the inscribed dates were affixed. After which its existence was forgotten, and the Mercat House was erected over it before 1610. The carvings have been supposed to belong to the period of Henry II. and Richard Cur-de- Lion, but it is not possible to put them earlier than the beginning of the sixteenth century, at all events such as represent the Crucifixion. It is possible, however, that some of the kingly or knightly figures may be somewhat earlier.
Stukeley was quite convinced that the Royston cave was the oratory of the Lady Rohesia, daughter of Aubrey de Vere, who succeeded his father in 1088, but there exists no evidence that she ever lived at Royston. The place takes its name from Rohesia, daughter of Eudo Dapifer.
In 1537, says Froude, while the harbours, piers, and fortresses were rising in Dover, "an ancient hermit tottered night after night from his cell to a chapel on the cliff, and the tapers on the altars before which he knelt in his lonely orisons made a familiar beacon far over the rolling waters. The men of the rising world cared little for the sentiment of the past. The anchorite was told sternly by the workmen that his light was a signal to the King's enemies" (a Spanish invasion from Flanders was expected), "and must burn no more; and when it was next seen, three of them waylaid the old man on his way home, threw him down, and beat him cruelly." [Footnote: "History of England," vol. iii. p. 256.]