Part of the Church Micro series started by sadexploration in November 2007
The cache is not at the published coordinates, but instead you should find yourself in front of a tomb for James Bird Esq.
The church does have limited parking nearby.
To find the cache you will need to find a date and age on the tomb, and those letters are used in the formula for calculating the cache’s coordinates:
March 11th ABCD Aged 8E
The cache is located at:
N50.(C-A)(B-E).A(A+E)C
E000.AC.(C+E)EA
The cache is not reachable from a wheelchair - or by anyone vertically challenged!
St Mary's church rests on the slope of the Bourne stream, was built late in the 12th century with Caen stone from Normandy. It was considerably enlarged in the 14th century and extensively restored in the 19th century.
St Mary’s massive tower (actually surmounted by a short spire which is not visible from many aspects) contains a ring of 8 bells originally cast in 1818 by what is now the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. They are housed in an oak frame and are rung from the first floor level of the tower.
The church clock, made in 1820 by Thwaites and Reed, is in an intermediate floor, above the ringing room and below the bells. It displays the time on a single face on the East side of the tower, and strikes the hours on the tenor (largest) bell.
In 1928 three of the bells (the 3rd, 5th & 7th ) were recast and all were re-tuned, again by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry. At the same time the original plain bearings were replaced by ball races and a number of tie bolts added in an attempt to stiffen up the frame. In 1986 the 4th bell broke away from its headstock and was recast, again by Whitechapel.
In 1994 the bells were given an overhaul in which the bearings were replaced and efforts made to reduce the amount of odd-struckness. This was partially successful, but an unfortunate feature of the frame design means that the handling of the 5th bell tends to be unpredictable, and the amount of odd-struckness is still enough to make things difficult for inexperienced ringers.
The cache contains a log only, without room for swaps or TBs. Not the smoothest of terrains, but should be reachable with a wheelchair.
It’s a small magnetic container.
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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@gmail.com.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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