Church Micro 11452 Worth Matravers- St Aldhelms. Multi-cache
crujack: I can no longer get to this cache so am withdrawing it.
Wil next finder please remove it.
Church Micro 11452 Worth Matravers- St Aldhelms.
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This isolated chapel, dedicated to St. Aldhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne, stands on cliffs 108 metres above sea level on St. Aldhelm's Head in the parish of Worth Matravers, near Swanage, Dorset.
Two points immediately strike the visitor as being most unusual. First, the angles of the building are pointing to the to the cardinal points of the compass, not the walls as is customary. Secondly, the 7.77 metre square shape is most unusual for an ecclesiastical building. These two features the square shape and the orientation have caused people to speculate that the chapel did not, in the first instance, have a religious origin. However the beautiful vaulting of the 12th century roof and the existence of mediaeval graves outside near the walls, together with its position within a circular earthwork, suggest that it was a religious building from the beginning. Very few facts about its early history are known, although legends and rumours abound. The first mention occurs in the reign of Henry III (1216-1272) when, according to the Dorset historian Hutchins, the chapel of St. Mary in Corfe Castle and the chapel of St. Aldhelm in Purbeck were each served by a chaplain, paid fifty shillings per annum by the Crown through the Sheriff of the County. (Apparently, this was the usual stipend of a royal chaplain.) Hutchins gleaned this information from the Pipe Rolls. We next hear of it in 1291, during the reign of Edward I, when it was rated at twenty shillings and then, again in 1428 in the Aid Roll when the parish of the chapel of St. Aldhelm was still taxed at twenty shillings, but a note says "there were no inhabitants". One other mention of the chapel is in 1557 or 1558, when John Aylworth sold the Manor of Renscombe, with the advowson of the chapel of Renscombe, to Bernard Gould. Was this chapel the one on the headland? A map of 1737 shows the headland as still belonging to Renscombe, with the chapel clearly indicated. There is no permitted parking near the church. The nearest car park is at Renscombe Farm, over a mile away to the north. In 2005, the Archbishop of Canterbury consecrated a new altar at the chapel as part of the celebrations of the 1300th Anniversary of St Aldhelm's consecration as Bishop of Sherborne. The cache owner was present; (not at the celebrations 1300 years ago though)! To find the cache, first you need to answer the following questions: A= The number of large angle buttresses supporting the outside walls. B= The number of windows. C.= The number of candelabras inside the chapel. The cache is at N 50 34 (A+B+C) (A) (A) W 002 03 (C) (A+B+C)(A). Check sum of all digits =45. The cache is about 5 minutes away, along the coastal path. ****************** ***************************************** For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by Sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro.co.uk See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series. ***************************************** *******************
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Jnyx gb gur frpbaq cbfg nsgre n srapr cbfg jvgu na natyr fhccbeg. Gur pnpur vf va haqretebjgu ba gur evtug arkg gb gur cngu.
Cyrnfr pbaprny cebcreyl