Church Micro 13809 Waltham Church
A History of the Church
The first known church in Waltham was built c.610 at the bidding of Sabert, King of the East Saxons and nephew of Ethelbert of Kent. It was a small wooden building.
After Sabert’s death in 617 and the East Saxon kingdom reverted to paganism and did not become Christian again until near the end of the 7th century, with the coming of St Cedd. Sabert’s church, or the memory of it, must have survived, for in the second half of the 8th century, when the East Saxons had come under the rule of Offa of Mercia, a stone church was built around it, similar to other churches built by Viking settlements in the 9th and 10th Centuries. The church here clearly remained “in business” as the new settlers were converted to Christianity.
In 1177, Henry II, as part of his penitence for the murder of Thomas Becket, refounded Harold’s college as a priory of Augustinian canons regular – that is, priests who lived together under rule, like monks, but unlike monks, were not confined within the walls of their monastery, but went out, like their predecessors to serve the surrounding villages. In 1184, Henry raised his foundation to the status of an abbey.
During the reign of Mary I, when an attempt was made to return to Catholicism, a blacksmith from Waltham, William Halliwell, was burned at the stake in Stratford, for heresy because he did not understand the Catholic teaching about the bread and wine at Communion. His story was told by John Foxe in his ‘Acts and Monuments’, or Book of Martyrs, the English version of which was written in Waltham Abbey during the reign of Elizabeth I. Later, in the early 17th century, that book and Bishop Jewel’s Apologia (a statement of the beliefs of the Church of England) were hung on chains in the church (and in all parish churches) instead of the Bible and Paraphrases, as Bibles by then were cheap enough for families to have their own copies. Not everyone agreed with the teachings of the Church of England, and at least one person from Waltham left for America for religious reasons in 1630. Others were fined for not attending church services, being either still Catholic, or belonging to one or other of the Protestant sects.
During the Commonwealth, Parliament tried to force everyone in England to become Presbyterian, and Waltham had its own Presbytery, or council of elders, whose job was to enforce the rules of their religion, but the incumbent, Thomas Fuller continued to hold Prayer Book services, and to defeat the elders in the ensuing arguments. All ceremonies (including Christmas) were abolished, and marriage became a civil matter, church weddings being forbidden. The local Justice of the Peace even fined himself for having his daughter married in church!
At the Restoration in 1660, Waltham returned to the pre-Commonwealth forms of worship, the abbey Church still being the only church in the town, but a few years before this, a meeting of the Society of Friends or Quakers was formed in the town and built a meeting-house in what is now Quaker Lane. This was not well received by many of the townsfolk, and when George Fox, the Quakers’ founder visited the town in 1654, he said, “the people were very rude, gathered about the house and broke the windows”. Quakers were subjected to fines on people who did not attend Church of England services regularly, and the goods of some Waltham Quakers were confiscated and stored in the church crypt when the owners did not pay their fines. The meeting-house later became a school, but was demolished in 1844 when the Quakers left Waltham.
The Church at Waltham continued to flourish, having a succession of able incumbents, even during the late 18th century when many parishes suffered from absentee vicars. Waltham did, in fact have one such, but fortunately he appointed good curates in his place. During the late 19th century, the people of Upshire, who had always been in the parish of Waltham Abbey, and had a long way to come to church, began to have services in their school hall. In 1904 the then owner of Warlies, Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton, had St Thomas’s church built for them, and Upshire became a separate parish. In 1974, after the building of the large Ninefields estate at the east end of the town, St Lawrence Church Ninefields was established, holding services in the school hall (it is necessary to add ‘Ninefields’ to the dedication, as the Abbey Church is also dedicated to St Lawrence). This has since become a District Church, the first step towards becoming a separate parish. In 1998, a new arrangement was made, whereby the Abbey Church of Holy Cross and St Lawrence, St Thomas Upshire, Holy Innocents High Beach and St Lawrence Ninefields were joined together in a Team ministry in order to foster co-operation between the parishes and make more efficient use of the clergy available.
The cache is a multi cache so it is not at the given coordinates
At the coordinates you willfind a stone with 5 words on it and a number which has 4 characters these are ABCC.
Once you have worked out what ABCC is you should be able to work out where the cache is , the cache is a tiny viral which is hidden well out of sight - it is not in the church or in the church grounds - but it is hidden in a place where many Muggles will walk past it so you will need to use your powers of stealth to recover it and replace it.
The Calculation
N51 (C-A-A) (A). (A+A)(Ax4)(C+A+A+A) W000 (B)(B)(Ax2)(C+A+A+A)(C+B+A+B+A)
The cache is only a short walk away.
Please when you are looking for any of my caches, cache with others in mind and park only where allowed. Please also look after any Geo Kids and pets and cache within the local guide lines for your own safety.