The Hatfield & St. Albans Railway was built with the support
of the GNR and opened on 16th October 1865. It carried both
passengers and freight, but was closed to passengers on 1st October
1951, by the infamous Dr. Beeching. A little freight traffic
continued on the line until 1969.
The London & North Western Railway station ‘St
Albans’ was the very first railway station to open in St
Albans on May 5th 1858, (it was only much later in 1924 that it was
renamed ‘St. Albans Abbey’). This was followed 7
years later by the Hatfield & St. Albans Railway station on
London Road, which opened in October 1865 (it also was only renamed
‘St. Albans London Road’ much later on 1st July
1950). Finally the London Midland Railway opened their station (the
current ‘St Albans City’ station) in 1868.
The old station buildings and platform can still be clearly seen
(although they now house a small business centre).
On the other side of London Road, The
Alban Way passes under a huge viaduct carrying the very
busy Midland Mainline tracks high above.
I just keep going round in
circles!
This is a Micro-cache using a modified 35mm film container just
big enough for a log, pencil and very, very small TB's. It is
sneakily hidden in a very open area - Therefore stealth will be required to retrieve it and please
move away from the cache site to fill in log etc. When you replace
the cache please ensure that the cap is firmly back in place!
The Alban Way is part of
National Cycle Route no. 61 between Hatfield and St. Albans and is
6½ miles long (Please check out the
Alban Way website and the very interesting Subterranea Britannica website)
The Alban Way Cache Series is
made up from 6 standard caches of various types along the old
railway line and a Bonus cache. To find the Bonus cache you will
have to visit all six standard caches and collect a clue for the
final coordinates of the Bonus cache. To post a log for the final
cache you must have logged all the standard caches – any logs
not meeting this requirement will be deleted!
First To Find honours go to The
Bongtwashes! Congratulations Bob!
This series of caches was inspired
by The Berko Monkey’s wonderful ‘Nicky
Line’ and the caches along ‘The Flitch
Way’.
The bonus cache has now been
published - so remember to record the clue – in this cache
it’s on the inside of the film container cap!
*** 15/06/08 - Fitted a new container lid with a new clue inside -
PLEASE TAKE CARE when replacing the container that the lid is
firmly in place! ***
"There comes a time in
every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to
go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure."
Mark Twain