Church Micro 8222 Walsham Le Willows Traditional Geocache
Church Micro 8222 Walsham Le Willows
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(large)
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A Cache With A Difference!
This is a Church Micro - but it's not micro.
The coordinates will take you to the cache but once there you will need to complete a field puzzle to log the find.
This does involve a short walk.
PLEASE DO NOT PARK AT THE CHURCH. This is a busy junction and unsafe to park at.
Enjoy!
The Church of St Mary in Walsham Le Willows sits on a junction, children's football at least once a week for the last 5 years has seen me drive past here many, many times. Every time I have thought how it really needs a CM cache. So here it is.
Coordinates will take you to the cache location a short way from the Church.
Parking for a few cars is available at the final cache location and a footpath runs from here across a field to the road you'll find the Church on.
**HERE'S THE IMPORTANT BIT**
The logbook is LOCKED. To gain access you will need to obtain the code by visiting 3 points in the churchyard and getting an answer at each. Those answers are the numbers you need. NO SIGNED LOG = NO FIND!
N52 18.108 E000 55.871
Q1 How many with the name Finch are mentioned here?
N52 18.114 E000 55.868
Q2 In which month was this placed here?
N52 18.116 E000 55.902
Q3 How many letters in the first name of the woman (wife of Thomas) who died on 9th January?
Use these numbers in that order on the lock and your find awaits!
I have given the coordinates for the start of the footpath back to the cache as a reference point. You don't have to use it but the footpath sign is missing so I thought it might help if anyone did plan to go that way.
The following information about St Mary's is taken from Simon Knott's Suffolk Churches website.
"The church sits in a huge graveyard at a junction, you couldn't possibly miss it, or think of anything else as being the heart of the village. Longways to the street, St Mary looks like a great ship.
Barmy old Arthur Mee called the exterior 'full of dignity', and that is about right. Few Suffolk clerestories are more impressive, with flushwork picked out between the windows.
St Mary has been through a difficult recent period during which this well-known and loved church was kept locked. This is unusual enough in Suffolk, but for such an important church to be inaccessible was most unfortunate. Today, however, St Mary is open, and once again the beating heart of its community.
The greatest medieval survival at Walsham is the superb roof. It is unusual in that it is supported by alternating tie-beams and hammer-beams, and the original paint is easily visible. It must have been quite something. The contemporary screen also survives, restored and regilded sympathetically. Most of the medieval glass which would have illuminated the roof and the screen has been lost, but fragments have been collected into octagonal lozenges in the east window. The 14th century font which saw all this come and go remains today, set in a sea of Victorian tiles, but still calling the children of the parish to baptism.
In the 1950s and 1960s, one of the best-loved stained glass artists of the 20th century lived in this parish, and worshipped in this church. Rosemary Rutherford was the sister of the Rector, and in her studio here she created her familiar swirling, graceful designs which continue to fill naves and chancels with kaleidoscopic light. Some of her best work can be seen at Boxford and Hinderclay in Suffolk, and at Gaywood in Norfolk, but there is a memorial window to her here, on the north side of the chancel. Although it is her design, she did not live to see it completed, dying at a tragically young age in 1972. In her memorial, a simple St Dorothy stands in unashamedly vivid pinks and greens, garlanded with flowers."
If you would like to add to the Church Micro series yourself then please look here
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There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page that can be found at
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Additional Hints
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