Hawker Hurricane Cockpit Access?

[Johnny .45]

Geez...I must seem like a Hurricane-nut or something! I don't know why I've come up with so many questions about the Hurricane recently...I never paid any particular attention to it before.
Anyway, I only just barely found out that the Hurricane has more than just the sliding canopy, and I'm still a bit confused. We probably all know about the Spitfire's little hinged access-flap under the port canopy, intended to make it (relatively) easier to squeeze into the tiny cockpit, but I had always assumed that the Hurricane had just the sliding canopy, and the pilot had to climb over the sill to get inside.
But looking over some pictures of various model Hurricanes earlier, I found that there is actually a small semi-rectangular access panel in about the same location as the Spitfires...with a few differences. First, on the early Hurricanes, like the fabric-wing Mk I, it appears to be on BOTH sides. On others, it appears to be on the starboard side alone.
It doesn't hinge down like the Spitfires does, either...I can't find any good, clear-enough photos to tell for sure, but it looks like it either slides down into the fuselage, or actually detaches entirely. I went and looked closer at a cutaway of a Hurricane I have, and it does indeed have the area beside the cockpit marked as "starboard 'break-away' escape hatch".
So, what is the deal with this? Is it indeed, as the caption suggests, for escaping a cockpit in emergencies? Or was it used routinely to enter/exit the cockpit, like the Spitfire? Heck, I'm not even positive that it actually IS detachable, that's just what the photo and the caption seemed to suggest. I've never seen an actual photo of a Hurricane with an open panel in the coaming, while many photos show the Spitfire with it's hatch hanging open.
Interestingly, as far as I can see, most later Hurricanes only had 1, on the starboard side, while the access-step and stirrup are on the port side. That also suggests that it was "emergency only". Perhaps whatever latches locked the port-side panel closed were a bit too weak to stand up to pilots climbing over it repeatedly, so they just blanked that one off?
Oh well, I'm putting more effort into this than I ought, as usual.
I am curious what you all know about this design feature, and if anyone has any good photos of the interior of it...I'm curious to see how it latches and everything.
And now that I think about it, does the Spitfires hatch also come off if the pilot needs to bail-out? If they were worried about a pilot making it out of the Hurricane in an emergency, than the Spitfire would be even more difficult to leave in a rush. I doubt that trying to open a down-ward hinged access flap while your burning plane falls to earth at 300mph would be very easy. The canopy jettisons anyway, so it wouldn't be too hard to make the access-hatch go along with it.