Wheatley is a village with a secondhand war memorial!
The original war memorial was unveiled on June 15th 1921 commemorating the men of Wheatley who died in the 1914-18 war and later the names of the men who died in the second world war were added.
In 1974 a decision was made to smarten up the burial ground which housed the war memorial. The memorial was found to be in a very poor, even dangerous, state of repair. Repairing it was going to be very costly and a new memorial even more, so what to do?
By chance Mr. Peter Audley-Miller, chairman of Wheatley parish council at the time,happened to be talking to the President of Magdalen college Oxford and mentioned the problem.
"Oh, we've got a spare one, you can have that" said the President ( obviously not quite in those words!)
It transpired that Magdalen college had a war memorial that had stood in St. Johns quad, commemorating the men from the college who had died in the first war, but had been removed during the second war and never reinstated.
It took 2 or 3 years and some negotiations but eventualy Wheatley had its new "second hand" war memorial. The old memorial was removed and the names of those who had died,taken off and moved to the parish church where you can see them on the outside wall of the church porch.
To find the cache you need to visit the stone plaques from the old memorial on the outside of the church porch N 51 44.854 W001 08.203 and the war memorial itself at the published co ordinates.(I suggest you visit the church first)
At the church
Look at the larger stone plaque above the names of the men who died
A= Number of letters in the 2nd word, 2nd line down
B= Number of letters in the last word, 2nd line down.
C= Letters in 3rd word,4th line down
D=1st word 2nd line, minus 1st word 3rd line.
At the memorial
On the front of the memorial is a date (The one carved in the stone- not at the bottom on the slate)
E= 1st number of date
F=3rd number minus 4th number
G= 4th number
The cache is at N51 44.ADC W001 08.BG(E+F)
I have had difficulty in obtaining accurate co ordinates for the final but please note the cache is not in the memorial gardens
“If anybody would like to expand to this series please do, I would just ask that you could let Just-Us-Two know first at justustwo1013@gmail.com so they can keep track of the memorial numbers and names to avoid any duplication".
There is a web page for the series https://warmemorialseries.co.uk and a facebook page, just search War MemorialGeocaching.