Village signs is a new series of caches based on the ornate signs that depict the heritage, history and culture of the villages that put them up (normally on the village green!).
This is a short multi starting at Appledores village sign.
Appledore is a village in the Ashford District of Kent. The village is on the northern edge of Romney Marsh and has a population approaching 800.
The village sign, erected for the millenium is made of iron and depicts an apple tree with golden apples. The name Appledore comes from the Old English apuldre (meaning apple tree) and was first recorded in the 10th century.
Appledore was once a port on the estuary of the River Rother. Famously, the greater part of the Danish army (280 ships - 5000 men) wintered at Appledore in 892-893, before moving into Wessex and suffering defeat at the hands of the Saxons. The importance of Appledore as a port diminished suddenly in the 13th-century when great storms caused the river Rother to change its course; the village street now leads down to the Royal Military Canal.
The canal was built in the 1804 because of the threat of Napolionic invasion. A French raid in 1380 resulted in the burning of the church of Saints Peter and Paul, which was later rebuilt. The village was permitted to hold a market in the main street by Edward II.
Another notable feature of the area is the Rhee Wall, a 13th-century waterway, was built to carry silt away from the eastern part of the Romney Marsh; it runs from Appledore to New Romney.
The village is known to generations of children as the setting for A. A. Milne's famous verse poem, "The Knight Whose Armour Didn't Squeak".
To find the cache go to the published co-ords and locate the village sign... and more specifically the plaque on the wooden post.
The cache can be found here:
N51 02.(D-A)(A+C)B
E000 47.C(D-A)(B-D)
Where:
A = The number of screws
B = Number of lines of text
C = Number of words in the first line
D = Number of words in the fifth line
If anybody would like to expand the Village Sign Series, please do. I would ask that you let Smokeypugs know first at www.villagesignseries.co.uk so they can keep track of the Village Sign numbers and names to avoid duplication.