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But centuries ago it was very
different and memories hereabouts are long and to this day, in
well-heeled Richmond's smart delis, over cappuccinos and olives,
dark stories are told: stories of darkness and daring, of venison
and adventure, and of a daring poacher..
The Old Deer Park, in a
thunderstorm
Alan Woodrow was his name,
Alan Woodrow of London and his gang who went night after night into
the Deer Park to poach the King's deer, always eluding the
gamekeepers by use of a cunning and secret tunnel that he had dug
himself and which led - so it is said - from the very centre of the
park all the way down to the Thames.
The entrance to the tunnel to
this day is marked by a modest memorial to Alan and his mates, but
no man knows exactly where lies the exit to that dark, doomed and
fatal passage. That memorial lies at the coordinates
above.
Fatal? Why yes, for
though he had led his friends to safety many times through the dark
and dank mud eventually the tunnel was the end of poor
Alan...
...a cave in? A flood? No one
can be sure, but the Matrons of Richmond will tell you that, to
this very day, Alan's ghost haunts the marshy, boggy, muddy,
desolate spot where the cache can be found.
To find the cache you could crawl down the tunnel...
but a better idea might be to take Alan's middle initial and
(if A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on) turn it into a
number.
Then, about 500m from Alan's
memorial, you'll be able to find the cache at
N 51’ 27.859
W 000’ 19.###
where ### = 48 x [initial] - 7 |