Background
St. Andrew's Church is joined with Holy Cross Church (GC37HQY) off Church Road in serving the local community.
St. Andrew’s Church began life in the early years of the building of Basildon New Town. The first service was held in “Vernons” bungalow (the owner bought it with the proceeds of a pools win) on the evening of 26 September 1954. The congregation also met in a Community Hall, and held some Communion services at Holy Cross Church.
In July 1955 building work began on the dual purpose church/hall in the Fremnells. The service and ceremony for laying the foundation stone of the building took place on 15 October 1955, with a carol service taking place on Christmas Eve of that year. The dedication service for the Church was held on 23rd May 1956, when an estimated 500 people attended to celebrate the church’s dedication.
St Andrew’s Vicarage was built in 1963, but plans to build a Church alongside the dual-purpose building never went ahead for financial reasons. Over the last 10 years, much refurbishment work has taken place at St Andrew’s.
The cache
The cache is not on the grounds of the church but is nearby. When placing there was a track and a prickly plant, but it was easy to get through to. There is no need to go in to a road to retrieve the cache or to do any kind of dangling off the bridge! It is a bison tube.
“If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Sadexploration know first at churchmicro@gmail.com so he can keep track of the Church numbers and names to avoid duplication. There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page found via the Bookmark list”