St Mary the Virgin, Monken Hadley
Another in the ever expanding Church Micro Series, started by Sadexploration.
A nano cache on flat terrain for St Mary's Church, Monken Hadley.
The parish church of St Mary the Virgin was built in its present form in 1494 (the date being carved in stone over the west door) although it is thought the first church was built here around 1140. The present building is in the perpendicular style, and includes two side chapels dedicated to St Anne and St Catherine. The building was heavily renovated in Victorian times, and contains large quantities of Victorian woodwork furniture. The parish and church were heavily influenced by tractarianism and the Oxford Movement, and it remains a focus of eucharistic worship within the surrounding district.
The tower of the church, at the west end, contains nine bells which are in good order and regularly rung, eight being hung for change ringing, and the ninth as a sanctus bell. At the top of the tower there is a signal beacon, part of an ancient series of signal beacons. The church markets itself under the title "The Beacon Church", and the beacon has become a symbol of the local area, and forms the badge of the nearby Church of England primary school.
Beacons were used to signal important news, such as imminent invasion. The beacon would have been lit during the threat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The original beacon was replaced during the reign of George III; but the age of the present beacon is not known and may be the third one. Inside the church there is a medieval brass monument to William and Joan Tornor dated 1500.
Monken Hadley is where London meets the countryside with a village green, three duck ponds, a cricket square on the Common (with play every summer weekend), a medieval church and Regency Rectory. The little church by the white Common toll gates is a popular destination for tourists and for worshippers. Next door to the church are six almshouses built between 1822 and 1849. Justinian Pagitt put money aside in 1678 to provide a house for the parish clerk and “six poor couples” of Hadley.
The cache is located at :-
N 51 39. Uranus (Saturn-Jupiter-Mercury) Jupiter
W 0 11. (Earth+Mars) Venus Neptune
You can check your answer here - 
****************** ******************
For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the
Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro.co.uk
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
****************** ******************