The Banbury Stone - Bredon Hill
The Banbury Stone, or The Elephant Stone as we always knew it, stands near the highest point on Bredon Hill, Worcestershire. It is one of a few stones that are named on Bredon, the other well known ones are the King & Queen stones at N52 02.760. W2 04.840. To the South side of the stone the earthworks of Kemerton Camp can be seen, they are the remains of an Iron Age hill fort that was believed to have been abandoned in the 1st century AD. Nearby is a Cotswold Stone folly built by John Parsons, squire of Kemerton Court as a Summer House, in the mid 18th century. It now houses Telecom equipment and can be a handy place to shelter when its cold, wet and windy up here!
We have been told by TheCleverClarks that local folk law says that the elephant comes alive and walks down to the Avon for a drink!
The views from Bredon Hill are spectacular, if you approach from the recommended parking above Bells Castle you will be able to look back to Gloucestershire and the North end of the Cotswold Hills, with Tewkesbury and its Abbey. Once on the top and near the headline co-ordinates you will be able to see across The Vale of Evesham to the North East, Pershore and on to Clee Hill to the North and the Malverns to the West.
We have been meaning to place a cache on Bredon, one of our favourite spots in Worcestershire for a while but just hadn’t got around to it. Fortunately we were given the opportunity to place a Virtual cache, see note below, and despite considering lots of options we kept coming back to our beloved Bredon.
To claim this cache
Please go to the headline co-ordinates where we would like you to take and post a photo of yourselves by The Elephant Stone for your log. Groundspeak rules say you don’t need to show your faces in the photo but we’d be delighted to see them if you don’t mind!
Please send us your answers, via geocaching messenger, to the two following questions:
1. From the Elephant Stone walk up to the nearby Cotswold stone tower and go to the steps that lead to the only external door. Scratched into the stone to the left of the top door hinge you should be able to make out three capital letters, what are they? There are others but they are far less legible.
2. Walk around to the opposite side, stand at the centre of the buildings face and look up just above the chamfered course of stones, you will see two more letters scratched into the stone, what are they?
You are allowed to post a “Found” log when you have fulfilled the above cache requirements. Please note that any logs and answers that haven’t fulfilled the requirements stated above will be deleted.
We hope you have enjoyed your visit to Bredon Hill and thank you for taking the time to come and find our cache.
FTF Congratulations to starlemusique on 22.09.17
Virtual Reward - 2017/2018
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between August 24, 2017 and August 24, 2018. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards on the Geocaching Blog.