Avington is a small village in the English county of Hampshire.
It is located on the banks of the River Itchen to the northeast of the city of Winchester. Administratively it forms part of the Itchen Valley civil parish that, in turn, is part of the City of Winchester district.
It has the honour of being mentioned in a folk song title "Avington Pond", which can found on the CD "Folk Songs of Hampshire"
The nearby house in Avington Park dates back to the late 16th century, although considerable alterations were made in the 1670's. The house is now privately owned and is Grade I Listed. Parts of the house can be visited in the summer months and Bank holidays between 2.30pm and 5pm due to the Historical Houses Association. Apart from original painted frescoes and sublime gilding (redone with an English Heritage grant in 2000) there is much to see including a Grinling Gibbons mirror, a William de Morgan jug and several mementos from the Battle of Trafalgar.
The parish church of St. Mary was built in 1768-71 by James Brydges of Avington Park, 3rd Duke of Chandos. As well as containing memorials inside to the Brydges family and Percy Bysshe Shelley's brother, John, there are also some unusual box pews reputedly made from Spanish mahogany taken from one of the Armada fleet.
For the Cache
Inside the telephone box find the post code for The Vicarage SO ab c
At the nearby post box find the post box number SO de fg D
The cache can be found a short distance away at
N 51 05.(b)(g)(f+1) W 001 14.(a*2)(g+1)(e*2)
The Fine Pair series was originally started by wizardsmum but is now managed by mattd2k.
If anybody would like to place 'A Fine Pair' of their own please do. I would just ask that you first visit www.afinepair.co.uk to request a number to avoid any duplication.
mattd2k also keeps a public Bookmark List of this series. Once your cache is published please contact him via at geocachingafinepair@gmail.com to have yours added.