Wiltshire Industry Multi-Cache
Graculus: Archiving the cache at the owners request.
Regards
Chris
Graculus
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(large)
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A cache with a view of a site that is historic in Wiltshire’s industrial history. It involves finding a virtual and then a walk along a bridal way, which gets very muddy in winter as it is frequented by riders and dog walkers. Parking isn’t easy as the road is very busy.
Old records show that there has been industry here on the banks of the River Avon since the 10th century. Initially corn mills, then fulling mills, a cloth factory and then a food factory.
Staverton Mill was built in 1800, and at that time was the biggest cloth mill in England. It enjoyed its heyday, along with the West of England cloth trade, in the early part of the 19th century. Then it was empty for 17 years in the middle part of the century, and burnt down.
Several attempts to revive the cloth factory failed and it was empty again when Nestle bought it for £6000 in 1897. The factory was converted to support the condensary in Chippenham and much needed employment was bought to the local parish, the population of which had dropped significantly since the last closure.
Over the next hundred years the factory went through many changes in its buildings and products – from a small condensary producing a couple of tinned milk products, through Crosse & Blackwell Baked Beans and Chambourcy Yogurts to Chilled Desserts. Nestle ceased production in 2004, but food manufacture continues with Cereal Partners making breakfast cereal on part of the site.
Parking for the cache will be difficult. The road outside the factory is very busy, and the factory car park has CCTV.
The co-ordinates above will direct you to the virtual at the beginning of the bridal path. This will give you a seven digit patent number (note this as ABCDEFG). The main cache is 0.ACD minutes North and 0.BDE minutes East of the virtual.
On the way to the main cache you will pass:
NAMILCO cottages built for factory employees. These were named after the Nestle And Swiss MILk Company. There were more but only numbers 10,11 and 12 survive.
The old mill building can be seen from the "bridge". This was built after the fire in 1845. The original top five floors were removed in 1935, and it is now offices.
The silver boilerhouse chimney is used by the RAF as a site point. It replaced an old red brick chimney in 1989.
The modern buildings that are the Cereal Partners plant build on the site of the canning factory.
The cache is large so care is required when retrieving and re-hiding. It is camouflaged so as not to be too noticeable to the dog walkers and riders that use the path regularly.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Iveghny – vs TCF jrer 100% npphengr lbh jbhyq or fgnaqvat ba vg.
Znva – Envyjnl fvqr bs gur cngu.