RR # 1 - Church Micro 2858 St Andrew’s, Roudham
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Roudham Ramble is a nice 3 mile ramble through the Norfolk countryside that will takes you passed Roudham church ruins and village and onto Bridgham. The walk can be muddy (and puddly!) There are no stiles or gates to climb BUT there are 2 points were you need to cross the railway line so extreme caution will be required. Plus there are two sections on quiet country roads.
There are 10 traditional caches (1 of which is a church micro) plus a bonus for which you will have to look for the numbers in 6 of the 10 caches en-route (we aren’t telling which ones – obviously!). Some of the caches are straight forward and some not quite so straight forward....
Good luck and we hope you enjoy the walk.
St Andrew, Roudham
Roudham is a pretty, straggled hamlet within the parish of Bridgham. It used to have a church of its own, but it was destroyed by fire in 1736. The story goes that workmen repairing the tower accidentally set fire to the thatched roof. The middle years of the 18th century were not a good time to be burned down; the Church of England was going through something of a low point, and the building was abandoned. What is left to us today is a pleasing ruin, at once imposing and dignified, and carefully maintained by the local authority. Indeed, the village Millennium project was a shelter just to the west, with interesting information boards about the history of the church and of the lost village to the north.
St Andrew has one of those south-west towers that form porches, and which are more common around Ipswich and to the north-west of Fakenham. It stands pretty well complete, albeit now as a hollow shell. Above the south doorway is a niche and a large round soundhole which would look good with a clock in it.
The ruin looks almost exactly the same today as in Ladbroke's drawing of the early 19th century. The area around the ruin is a corralled paddock, presumably so that sheep may safely graze in it, but you can walk in and approach the church. Stepping through the tower porch is a bit messy, since it not surprisingly forms a chute for pigeon droppings. The interior was a little overgrown with nettles when we visited, but you can still see enough to get an idea of the scale of the interior, because the walls are still complete up to a certain level, and the east and west gables still contain the window arches. I don't think that there ever was a chancel arch.
Even today, the graveyard is still in use, but after the fire, the shell was obviously taken over by a local family to be used as a mausoleum. The west end of the nave is cordoned off with an elegant 18th century screen, and the family ledger stones are laid as a pavement within. The bell from the tower now sits on the nave floor at Bridgham, along with a font which is very weathered and may well also have been brought from here.
All in all, then, a satisfying place to visit, and always open. This is a pretty place, and just to the east of the ruin is a delightful thatched round house. We stumbled across this place when hunting down local asparagus for sale earlier this year… something to look out for if you are here in season!
To solve this multi cache you need to find the ‘Roudham: Shrunken Medieval Village’ notice board. Which is somewhere near the posted co-ordinates.
You need to find A B C D E F. Each letter is then converted to another letter on the notice board and you can then convert that into a number (a = 0, b = 1 etc up to j = 9. then you start again at k = 0 to t = 9 and then through to z = 5) – (PLEASE NOTE : treat an numbers in the text as letters. Also you can ignore the paragraph at the bottom on its own with reference to the photographer.)
A – 1st paragraph, 1st row, 14th letter (from the left)
B – 2nd paragraph, 6th row, 27th letter
C – 3rd paragraph, 3rd row, 42nd letter
D – 4th paragraph, 4th row, 24th letter
E – 5th paragraph, 2nd row, 30th letter
F – 6th paragraph, 1st row, 9th letter Now convert this into N 52 26.ABC E 000 52.DEF
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Tebhaq yriry.