Salcott Surprise cache is a bonus cache for those doing the St
Mary’s Church Micro No.223 at Salcott cum Virley GC1V91J and would
like a small walk in the area as well. The co-ordinates given are
for the RSPB’s Old Hall Marshes a SSSI also cared for by English
Nature as a National Nature Reserve. The route to the bonus cache
is all on public footpaths. The cache is at the entrance to the
site not in the site itself, though a walk here affords some
beautiful views across the Blackwater to Mersea and Bradwell. The
above co-ordindates are not the cache location. To find the
co-ordinates for the cache you need to first locate the church
cache the co-ordinates are on the back of the log book.
The area is famous as a focal point for smugglers, who used the
secluded water inlets of Tollesbury, Salcott and Mersea and often
hid their contraband within the overgrown water reeds.
The churches are also steeped in legend associating them with
non-fictional smugglers; from the church towers, signals could be
flashed to Tiptree Heath, and to Beacon Hill on the other side of
the Blackwater estuary. There was always a good turn-out for the
service at Virley because the congregation was swelled by local
smugglers who aimed to keep an eye on the contraband they had
concealed in various parts of the church.
According to one local fable, villagers found a customs boat
floating off nearby Sunken Island with a crew of corpses — all 22
men had their throats cut from ear to ear. The bodies were buried
in the local graveyard, with the hull of their up-turned boat over
the graves.
The cache is a small container.