Another in the record breaking series of Church Micro caches - while placing another cache nearby we found ourselves near this church and some research showed that not only was there no CM cache here there appears not to have been in the past despite this church being quite a prominent feature in the town. It also appears on the Information board which highlights 10 historical locatons in the town (see our other multi in the town Mole's SOS FYI #284 (https://coord.info/GC8BRMV) which feature this board)
St Dunstans Church
From the Friends of St Dunstans Church website it states :-
Earliest times (1030-1340)
The history of the church and the town it serves are inextricably linked.
Cranbrook is not mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086. Yet a village of sorts probably existed by then. The land around Cranbrook in the 11th century belonged to the Manor of Godmersham, owned by the monks of Canterbury. They were probably the founders of the first church here. It would have been wooden, and some records suggest it was built in the early 1030s and named after St Dunstan--England's most popular saint.
The earliest record of a parish priest, Gaufridius Forti, is from 1171. By his time we are fairly sure that a stone building was either built or under construction. This first stone building would have been much smaller than the present one.
This website http://www.fostd.org/history.aspx?p=0 gives a considerable amount of historical information about this church and is well worth a read - however there is too much to add to this page though it does finish with
The Friends of St Dunstan's was founded in 1996 to preserve the church as a place of Christian worship and for the benefit of the whole community. The Friends also works to encourage understanding of the architecture, history and significance of St Dunstan's.
On to the cache
An easy multi-cache - the final location, though not far, can be found with some simple research at the church
At the given co-ordinates you will find a couple of benches
One says 'In Loving Memory of D... B...' - number of letters in first name = W, number of letters in last name = X
The other says 'In Loving memory of M... C...' - number of letters in first name = Y, number of letters in last name = Z
Cache can be found at N51 05.(W+Z-X)(Z+Z-X)(X) E000 32.(Z-W)(Y-X)(X+Y-Z)
The cache is another of ddm's handcrafted containers so please handle with care - the final location is not completely muggle free so please search with this in mind.
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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.co.uk.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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