Church Micro 9124... Whitehills Multi-cache
Church Micro 9124... Whitehills
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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Trinity Parish Church has had an interesting history. It was originally built in the town of Banff in 1879 and was a United Presbyterian Church. It obviously became redundant in the town and was bought by the Whitehills congregation, who wanted their own church in Whitehills village. The building was taken apart stone by stone and transported here in 1926, where it was re-built completely. The church has remained in full ecclesiastical use since, and the congregation united with St Brandon's in the later 20th century.
Trinity Church stands on a slightly raised plot of land on Seafield Street, which runs downhill to the north and the old fishing village core and the harbour. There are simply-laid out garden grounds around the church, but no graveyard.
The church is a rectangular building, aligned approximately north-south. There is a tall, narrow tower at the southern end, along with an entrance porch and a vestry. It was built with roughly-squared rubble granite, which his loosely coursed. The tall, steeply-pitched roof is slated and features decorative ridge tiles and metal vents.
The east side of the church faces the street and is the principal elevation. At the southern end is a gabled entrance porch. It has a tall, pointed-arch doorway in the centre of the east gable, which has chamfered margins and a recessed door. The arch of the doorway is heavily moulded and rests on very fine, carved capitals, which feature deeply carved foliage. The wooden double doors may be original and have large decorative hinge plates. The porch also has small, stepped corner buttresses and a cross finial on the apex. The sides of the porch have small pointed-arch (lancet) windows. The east elevation of the nave has five fairly small lancet windows, with quatrefoil and cusped stone tracery and small, leaded panes of frosted glass. The original rainwater goods, including dated (1879) cast iron hoppers, guttering and down pipes.
The octagonal tower at the south-east corner is the most striking feature of the church. It has a square lower stage, which rises into a tall, narrow, octagonal stage. Towards the top it tapers into a narrower round stage, in which is mounted a later clock face on four sides. There are also small lancet openings with wooden louvers. The tower is topped by a conical, slated spire, which tapers to a point, which is surmounted by a fine metal weather vane.
The north gable of Trinity Church has two lancet windows lower down, similar to those in the east elevation. Above is a single, central wide pointed-arch window, in which is fine stone tracery in a radiating rose pattern. High up in the gablehead is a much smaller pointed-arch window with quatrefoil tracery. On the apex is a tall stone cross finial. The south gable has a very large pointed-arch window with cinqfoil and quatrefoil tracery. Below is a group of three pointed-arch windows and high in the gablehead is a small pointed-arch window with quatrefoil tracery. The west elevation of the church, at the rear, has five lancet windows that match those on the opposite south side. A small, single-storey vestry extends from the nave at the north-east corner.
The above co ords take you to Trinity Parish Church, where you will need to gather information from the information board to work out the final co ords where the cache is hidden at :
N57.40.ABC W002.35.XYZ
A Wee map at the top you need the number for " Commerce and Fishing "
B In the main description the same date is mentioned twice, first digit + the fourth digit
C The number for Whitehills public hall + pulpit decorated for flower festival
X wee map number for "Rocks"
Y Number for "Service in church "
Z The date mentioned twice in main text, 2nd digit - 3rd digit
Parking for a couple of cars at the final
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Additional Hints
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ebpxf