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Giants Graves Traditional Cache

Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
3 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Small, round clip and lock container with log book, pencil and some small swaps

All of the sites mentioned here are protected scheduled ancient monuments, it is illegal to interfere with them in any way (eg. metal detecting, digging, lighting fires etc.)

(ref point 001) The Giants Graves on the aptly named 'Round Hill' are not burials as their name suggests, but are in fact Medieval rabbit warrens built in the shape of pillow mounds. These would probably have dated to the 1500's and belonged to the Lord of the Manor at Lammerside Castle. (the ruins of the castle can be seen to the NW of the cache site)
They were built away from crop fields in a prominent position as a show of wealth, rather like fancy gate posts on a present day manor house. At this time Rabbits were highly prized expensive animals kept only by the wealthy for their fur and delicate meat and one would have cost an average mans entire weekly wage. Rabbits were introduced from France by the Normans and a 'warrener' would have been employed to look after them because at this time they were not fully acclimatised to the British Weather. (a very different story now of course!)

(Ref point 002) The White Braken Cairns are a Bronze Age Burial mound with 2 smaller 'satalite' mounds to the NNW of this site, on the river bank, these were excavated in the 1870's by Cannon Greenwell. He found a small clay 'incense cup' (now in the British Museum), a bone pin (now lost) and what he described as the cremated remains of a child (open to interpretation, these were the early days of analysis)

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Abg n ebyyvat fgbar

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)