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Lower Ormerods Traditional Cache

This cache has been archived.

uklad: No longer maintaining these so saying goodby to this one

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Hidden : 1/7/2015
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:

A small click tub bring your own pen


Further west along the lane from the village you can see the remains of the house known as Lower Ormerods. The original house was built in the seventeenth century on a level platform cut out of the hillside. Excavation of the ruins has revealed evidence of building techniques. Dressed stone formed the interior and exterior face of each wall, with a cavity a foot wide that was filled with rubble, lime mortar, and earth. Every few courses longer stones, known as through-stones, were laid through the thickness of the wall to provide additional strength. Stones on the outside of the wall were set at a slight angle in such a way that rain water would run off the wall rather than seeping into it, a method known as water shotting.

As at Hartley House Lower Ormerods became a centre for weaving near the end of the eighteenth century. In 1790 it was bought by Ellis Ratcliffe of Grane village who added a loom shop along the back of the building. For much of the nineteenth century Lower Ormerods was occupied by the Kenyon family. By the time of the 1871 census, however, the farm itself consisted of just nine acres farmed by John Kenyon, who also employed his daughter Alice Kenyon as a dairymaid.  Five other members of the family were working as cotton weavers at the cotton mill at Calf Hey. One of them, Henry Kenyon, born in 1852, soon moved into the village, where he became caretaker of the Methodist chapel. He lived in Chapel Row, and also kept a grocer's shop. Around 1906, however, he decided to move away from Haslingden Grane, complaining that the reservoirs had made the village too cold. He moved to the town of Darwen, some five miles to the west.

At both Hartley House and Lower Ormerods the last recorded farming was in 1899. Soon after that date Lower Ormerods was abandoned and gradually fell into ruin.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Va vgf bja cbepu haqre fgbar ABG VA BE BA GUR JNYYF !!

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)