Mole’s SOS – Church Micro #757 St. Stephens Traditional Geocache
Long Man: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache, I'm archiving it.
Andy
Long Man
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Mole’s SOS – Church Micro #757 St. Stephens
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Another in Mole's SOS series and the ever expanding Church Micro series
I have put together a series of caches and the theme of these are ‘Series’ – each cache is, in their own right, part of a group of caches around the country following a theme linked to a landmark or object, such as mills, ponds and in this case Churches.
Each ‘series’ was devised by an individual cacher who either retained the series and developed it on their own such as the ponds, dewponds and lakes series by martletsman or encouraged other cachers to add to the series with the request to advise the originator of a new addition in order to keep tabs of the increasing number and save duplication – such as the church micro series, which is managed by sadexploration. There are some series of caches which do not get referred to by a rolling number allocated by the originator (like church micro #176), instead these others are referred to by their location – such as the motorway mayhem series where the motorway and the junction distinguish it from any other. My little series will draw on many of these – each being part of the series referred to but part of this series – Mole’s SOS (Series Of Series)
Now to this cache - Church Micro #757 St. Stephens, Tonbridge.
This cache is one of many of an ever expanding church micro series originally instigated by sadexploration and while a high majority of church micro caches can be found in the South East they can be found dotted all over the country.
The cache is in a location where much stealth is required to retrieve and replace the cache so please do so with care.
A brief history of this church - The railway came to Tonbridge in 1842. The south end of the town developed rapidly as a result and the population quickly outgrew the existing parish church, St Peter and St Paul. In 1848 the vicar, Sir Charles Hardinge, paid £200 to buy the site for St Stephen's. St Stephen's was designed by the popular Victorian architect, Ewan Christian who also designed St Saviour's, Tonbridge and St John's, Hildenborough and restored other Kent churches such as St Lawrence, Bidborough and St Nicholas', Sevenoaks. The church was built by a local firm called Punnett and completed in 1853. Members of the Punnett family are buried in vaults beneath the church, which you can see outside by the south wall. The Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated the building in October 1851. The spire was built shortly afterwards and the north aisle added in 1866. The interior was originally plain, with no organ or stained glass. Apart from the east window, the stained glass we see today was designed by Morris & Co between 1910 and 1913. (Info obtained from www.ststephenstonbridge.org)
Parking nearby
If any body would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let sadexploration know first so they can keep track of the churches, numbers and names to avoid duplication
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Terl bar - yrsg ba vgf bja