The bridge was built by an earl of Essex to allow easy access to
Cannock Chase for hunting from Shugborough hall. It dates from the
17th century.
The cache itself is a black-painted ammo box with an official
geocache sticker. The surrounding area gets very busy in the
summer, but the (new) cache site should be OK. Please be careful
about re-hiding the cache though. There's the usual swaps and a
camera: Take a photo and leave the camera in the cache.
You *could* approach the cache from Great Haywood, but you'd be
missing out. There's a great walk (only about a mile and a quarter)
up though the hall's grounds on a public bridleway which is part of
the Staffordshire Way. There's a farm, a museum, and lots of nice
architecture within the estate.
We parked at Cold Man's Slade, off the A513 Stafford-Rugeley
road at N52 47.244 W002 01.373. There's 2 entrances to this car
park: the one nearer Milford (by 100yds) is much preferable unless
you've got a 4x4. The entrance to the bridleway is a short way
along the A513 towards Rugeley at N52 47.365 W002 00.988. The walk
between Cold Man's Slade and here isn't very buggy-friendly: If you
have small children you might prefer to park at the hall itself
(Parking is £2), as the A513 is quite busy and the footpath narrow
in a couple of places.
In the vicinity of the cache there's a nice place to sit and
watch boats go by, and people do swim in the river near Essex
Bridge (despite the warning notices that say not to!)
This is a new site for the cache a little way from the original
site: It's a little less busy, hopefully, and the final cache
location shouldn't be somewhere anyone not looking for the cache
will go. It's still a fairly public place though, so please take
care. Note the terrain rating has gone up: There's a steep climb at
one point and a couple of places that might be tricky with a buggy,
but not difficult to walk.
It can be reached without climbing into the pile of cut branches.
Despite the Streetmap Map, it is west of and not on the railway
line!