Number 1422 in a series of caches where a red telephone box is in close proximity to a post box.
The only rules are that they have to be able to be photographed together, be not more than 100’ apart and the phone boxes have to be red.
This telephone box and lettter box stood outside the village Post Office which closed sometime between 2009 and 2012. It was then taken over by a local artist as a gallery but that has now closed too.
Nowadays, the fine pair is probably rarely noticed as the traffic passes by, the route through Sopley now being a rat-run. But it was once a sleepy but lively rural village. There's a story I read of the confusion when they made the road system one-way. The new buses would come across a herd of cows coming towards them as the farmers drove their cattle the way they had always done for years, irrespective of the road signs!
Walkers on the Avon Valley route hopefully notice thefine pair, as they walk right by on their way to or from Salisbury cathedral.
To find the cache location
You'll need to visit the site but you might want to research some info for A and E before you set off.
Post Office Telephone boxes were models K1 - K8. Which number model is this one = A
The Postbox number includes the first part of the postcode, BHxx. Add the two digits then take away 1 = B
The Postbox number has 2 more digits after the postcode part. The first digit = C
The Postbox number has 2 more digits after the postcode part. The second digit = D
The name of the house which housed the Post Office starts with a P. How many letters in the name? If the stream on the other side of the road joins the River Avon upstream of the Mill, deduct 7 from the numbers of letters. If the stream on the other side of the road joins the River Avon downstream of the Mill, deduct 4 from the numbers of letters. = E
How many rows of glass in the phone box door = F
The house next door has a two word name. Deduct the number of letters in the second word from the number of letters in the first word = G
The cache is at N50 4A.BCD W1 4A.EFG
Checksum of all numbers is 52
The A Fine Pair series is 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 geocachingafinepair@gmail.com to have yours added
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