Church Micro 3836…Boxley Traditional Geocache
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(micro)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
Cache details
You are looking for a 35mm film pot containing an inner bison. Please do not take either of the containers, by doing so increases the likelihood of the log sheet succumbing to the elements more quickly so necessitating more maintenance trips for me and less fun for your fellow cachers. If you need a caching container please give me a shout and I'll endeavour to find one for you.
Location information
St Mary's and All Saints Church is in the small village of Boxley, just North of Maidstone, the village has heritage dating from 1100AD. The church at Boxley claims to have been sited on an old Roman road that linked Boxley with nearby Detling and being near to the now almost disappeared Boxley Abbey, the church was a welcome respite for Pilgrims on the Pilgrims Way between Canterbury and Winchester.
St Mary's and All Saints started in the 13th Century and had later additions in the 14th and 15th Century, it was later restored in the 1870's, it is a Grade I listed building. The church is constructed of uncoursed rag-stone and flint walls with a plain tile roof, the naive is flanked by aisles on both sides, and the chancel has a vestry on the south side. The tower at the west end of the naive has an narthrex on its west side being the remains of an earlier church.
The tower is formed in three stages with buttressed corners and a battlement parapet. The north and south aisles feature varied sized and detailed two-lighted gothic decorated windows on their flank and end walls.
The church also contains memorials to Sir Henry Wiat of Allington Castle who died in 1537. There is also an interesting memorial to Sir Thomas Wyatt, a nobleman executed by King Richard III.
The lynchgate was constructed in 1875 and is listed separately as a Grade II listed structure. The churchyard also contains a large number of Grade II listed monuments and headstones.
Boxley is most widely known for its Abbey, founded in 1146, but the remains of which have now all but disappeared. It came to have, in the Abbey Church, the ‘miraculous’ Holy Rood of Grace’. This was a figure of Christ upon the Cross, which tradition says was so cleverly made by an English carpenter, whilst a prisoner in France, that it could nod and wink and move its limbs and frown and smile. The monks encouraged the many pilgrims, who called at the Abbey, to lay down gifts and see, in these movements, signs that they, the pilgrims, might be leading good enough lives to lead them to Heaven.
Sadly, it was the monks hiding ‘behind the scenes’ who were pulling strings to achieve the appropriate nods and winks from the figure of Christ and the most favourable signs were given to those pilgrims who had donated the largest gifts. There was a similar ‘miracle’ in the form of a stone figure of a saint, which only the pure of heart could lift. But, of course, for the right gift a hidden monk would press a lever to assist the figure to rise.
As a result of all this trickery, the gifts from thousands of pilgrims made the Abbey extremely rich. The Cistercian monks, who were supposed to lead simple and holy lives, became wealthy and corrupt. When Henry VIII dissolved all the English Abbeys and Monasteries in the 1530’s the trickery at Boxley was exposed and helped to justify Henry’s actions.
At the time of placing, the cache contained:
First to Find badge.
Log book
Laminated cover sheet explaining geocaching
**************************************
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.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
*************************************
Congratulations to JLFBrick and Sickrob on joint FTF 16/06/2013
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ybpngvat guvf pnpur vf n tbbq fvta.