Spurstow Spa Traditional Geocache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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26th September 2010 cache is fully replaced. Watertight box and new log book. Thank you to the original placer "bargee" for allowing us to adopt this cache and renew it. New photos added to page to show the "out with the old and in with the new" changeover. The woodland is becoming increasingly overgrown and the path very little used. As such you may find yourself ensnared with undergrowth and brambles... but with a little patience the cache is still there and accessible.
Salt was in use long before recorded history. Since the dawn of time, animals have instinctively forged trails to natural salt sources to satisfy their need for salt. Now it’s time for Cachers to do the same. Ancient man the hunter obtained his salt from eating animal meat. As he turned to agriculture and his diet changed, he found that salt (maybe as sea water) gave his vegetables the same salty flavour he was accustomed to with meat. Over many millennia, he learned how salt helped to preserve food, cure hides and heal wounds. Nomadic bands would have carried salt with them and traded it with other bands for different goods. The salt production methods employed by the Romans in Britain were ingeniously simple. They collected saturated brine from natural springs that welled up around this area of Cheshire and then they evaporated this brine in open pans over a fire to retrieve the salt crystals. Brine evaporation is still the basic principle of salt production today, although modern salt production methods bear little resemblance to the primitive methods of the past. One of these natural spa’s is here at Spurstow Spa This is a mineral spring with claimed medicinal properties. Popular in 18th century. According to analysis, not saline; mainly sulphates of sodium and magnesium etc. Acording to “A Topographical Dictionary of England” published in 1848 : SPURSTOW, a township, in the parish of Bunbury, union of Nantwich, First division of the hundred of Eddisbury, S. division of the county of Chester, 4¼ miles (S. E. by E.) from Tarporley; containing 508 inhabitants. It comprises 1718 acres, of which the soil is three-fourths clay, and one-fourth sand. A mineral spring called Spurstow Spa was formerly much frequented, and baths were erected by Sir Thomas Mostyn, for the accommodation of visiters; but the waters are not at present in repute. The impropriate tithes have been commuted for £130, payable to the Haberdashers Company, London Whilst placing the cache the dogs and i hunted around for the spring but we were unable to locate it. * Coords updated on 22/6/07* thanks to all those cachers who posted or emailed me new coords.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
vagb jbbq, orlbaq ubyyl, ybbx haqre jurer 2 ybtf pebff