Chislehurst St Patrick
Another in the ever expanding Church Micro Series, started by Sadexploration.
Chislehurst originally consisted of four communities: Mill Place area, Royal Parade, Prickend (now the High Street area) and the Perry Street area. My Wherigo Church Micro 4636 - Chislehurst Christ Church covers the Mill Place area; my second Wherigo Chislehurst Constitutional takes in Royal Parade and the southern part of Chislehurst Common; Scadbury Stroll covers part of the Perry Street area and this one takes in the High Street area and the northern part of the common, and has the benefit of being a Church Micro, linked to St Patrick's.
St Patrick’s church was originally built in 1930 as a cinema and suffered considerable roof damage during the blitz.
The parish priest of St Mary's Catholic Church in Chislehurst realised in the late 1950's that a new church was needed for the parishioners living on the other side of the village. In 1959 he had plans drawn up for a new church, but unfortunately it wasn't possible to follow this through. A Mass centre was set up temporarily in the local British Legion Hall but this was not ideal due to the smell of beer and smoke.
In 1960, the local cinema came up for sale and the priest made an offer of £10,750, plus £750 for the contents including the tip-up seats, which was accepted. A local firm carried out the conversion and removed the screen, refurbished the seats and fitted kneelers.
The church is quite light inside, and has large clear glass gothic-style windows. The seats from the cinema remain, and in the porch the holy water stoop was previously the ticket office window. The projection room serves as the organ loft.
The church was officially dedicated in 1962, and soon became a parish in its own right. Later a church hall was added, which made a tremendous difference to the social life of the parish.
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The cache, a nano tube, is not at the given coordinates, which are at the entrance to one of the two recommended car parks. To find the location of the cache you will need to undertake a Wherigo which will lead you via the church and some places of interest to the cache.
The Wherigo cartridge takes you on a walk of just over one mile on the flat through the High Street area of Chislehurst and can be completed within 45 minutes. You will visit eight zones including the final location where you can find a physical cache. You must find the cache if you want to log your find on the Geocaching.com website.
At each zone, you are required to answer a simple question about things you can see in the locations you visit. If you get the answer wrong, you will be able to try again, or you can skip the question. You can only skip one question as you go round if you want to complete the cache. If you experience any problems, try walking outside the zone you are in and re-entering the zone.
Find out more information about Wherigo caches here. Download the cartridge you need to play the Church Micro 5651 Chislehurst - St Patricks WhereIGo here.
WARNING: The area is busy and there are some narrow footpaths. You will need to cross roads at complex junctions and there is plenty of traffic around - please take care, particularly if you have children with you. Although much of the route is paved there are a couple of places where you need to go on the grass, so it can be muddy.
This cartridge was created using Earwigo - many thanks to sTeamTraen for the development and maintenance of this great Wherigo creation tool.
*** Congratulations to Lucyflight on the FTF (again!) ***
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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.co.uk
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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