Hermitage-Sandyville is about 200 kilometres from the Trans Canada Highway, and is located on the South Coast of Newfoundland. Hermitage, which was used as a fishing station by the French in the Seventeenth Century, was later an outport of the London-based Robert Newman and Company (later Newman and Hunt) by 1800, and by the Twentieth Century was the regional services centre of Hermitage Bay. Hermitage was an early outport of French fishing interests centered at St. Pierre and Plaisance (Placentia) on the south coast in the Seventeenth Century. It was reported to be occupied in 1687 by one family and a number of fishing servants, the civilian population totaling thirty-one inhabitant.

The harbour entrance is deep with a shallow bottom near its head and is protected by barren-topped hills which rise on both sides of the harbour. A brook divides the flatter land at the head of the ice free harbour with settlement concentrated on the ample level land on its eastern side.