London Livery

The cache

35mm film canister with magnet on the side located near an old place for trade some where within the old city walls (well, the narrows it down a little bit!). Sorry I couldn’t manage anything larger but it is hard to find reasonably large secure places.

As with a lot of urban caches you’ll need to be sensitive of local residents, gardeners and passers by. Be aware of potential watchers (whether in homes or offices or via security cameras). However, if you are approached by either Police or Security Officers avoid acting suspiciously and explain what you are doing.

Avoid doing the actual cache discovery during the weekday lunch hour or commute times. Relatively quiet in the evening or weekend (the City is wonderful to walk through at the weekend).

Buggy and wheelchair friendly (wheel chair user might possibily need an assistant for the actual cache recovery)

All the stages are 24 hour access. You can do the sites in any order but doing them in the order I list below (or in reverse) makes for a pleasant walk.

Once you’ve found it: *** make sure it goes back where you found it. This is so it will be there for those who come after you and not discovered by those who shouldn’t find it ***

Getting started

This is a walk around some of Halls of the London Livery Companies. If you follow the steps in order you’ll pass a number of the main City tourist spots (including St Paul’s, Museum of London, the Old Bailey and the Millennium (Wobbly) Bridge across to the South Bank. If you are a visitor to London this could be a nice way to spend part of an afternoon or morning.

As this is a City cache and GPS can be unreliable, I have provided a street name in the hint for each stage – if you are hardcore you can just work from the coords given. Generally the coordinates are for roughly the front entrance of the Hall in question, you might need to look around the Hall area to get the actual answer.

It took me just under two hours to walk around the route starting from the final cache, but the included looking for interesting things to ask you about – then again I knew where I was going to be going!

The starting coordinates for this cache are the Guild Hall – no clues here, but it appropriate given the relationship between the Livery Companies and the City. Have a look in the museum here if you can and see if you get to meet the giants gog and magog

What is a Livery Company?

[Extracted from the Corporation of the City of London web site – link here ]

“The livery companies probably had their origins in this country before 1066. Guilds (or mysteries, from the Latin 'misterium', meaning professional skill) flourished throughout Europe for many centuries.

The development of guilds in Britain was not confined to London. The Cutlers of Hallamshire in Sheffield, the Merchant Venturers of Bristol and the Fellmongers of Richmond in Yorkshire are examples of those still in existence around Britain.

The word 'guild' derives from the Saxon word for payment, since membership of these fraternities was (and is) paid for. The word 'livery' refers to uniform clothing as means of identification. Today, new companies in their formative years are usually referred to as guilds.

The early companies were the medieval equivalent of trading standards departments, checking quality of goods and weights and measures. They also controlled imports, set wages and working conditions and trained apprentices. After many years of fierce dispute, an order of precedence for livery companies was finally settled in 1515, starting with Mercers at number one.

Today City street names - such as Milk Street, Bread Street, Ironmonger Lane, Poultry, Cloth Fair and Mason's Avenue - mark the sites where it all began.

The Livery has a continuing role in commerce and trade. Several companies still have a statutory or regulatory role - for example the Goldsmiths' Company, which since 1300 has been responsible for assaying (testing for purity) and marking gold and silver wares. From 1478 these wares were required to be brought to its hall for testing, the origin of the word 'hallmark'. Today the Goldsmiths continue to run the London Assay Office where several million articles of gold, silver and platinum are hallmarked each year.”

Perhaps, surprisingly, there are 107 Livery Companies in the City today (look here for a list – see how many of the professions you recognise). As well as the commercial and trade angle, all have strong charitable aims.

Whilst practically all the Livery Companies have their own web sites, you can find nice overall summaries (including some pictures and potted history) on the London Footprints Livery Halls Page the cache route broadly follows the walk described here . London Footprints is a great source of short walks around the City and London area.

Step One: The Girdlers Company

N 51° 31.023 W 000° 05.452

The Foundation Stone for the Hall was laid 9^th May 1960, but when did J Codbolt and the Girdlers Company declare their ownership of a near by wall?  1A54.

The scaffolding around the front of the building shouldn’t prevent you from getting this. The answer is visible from the street; you do not need to gain access to the Girdlers garden.

Step Two: The Pewterers

N 51° 30.998 W 000° 05.704

The Pewterers first hall was founded in around 1496. These premises date from 1961. How many small engraved stone panels are there between the flag pole and the main double front doors? This will be B.

Between Step Two and Step Three you pass by Noble St look at the large well preserved section of the old City Walls here. The panels provide a good commentary on what you are seeing.

The Museum of London is just across London Wall (very well worth a visit).

There are a number of other caches in this area

Step Three: The Poulterers

N 51° 30.956 W 000° 05.916

This is a virtual hall! The Great Fire of London got this one (1666), but when was The Poulterers’ Hall built? 16C0.

Step Four: The Culters

N 51° 30.936 W 000° 06.049

Whilst the majority of Livery Companies keep their goodies inside (and they do have some very impressive goodies), the Cutlers Company Hall has a wonderful frieze on the exterior that explains the old manufacturing process.  There are explanatory notes on the fence that explain the various activities depicted in the frieze – I strongly suggest you read this. How many individuals are there in the frieze (look very carefully)? 3D.

The Old Bailey is just around the corner.

Between Step Four and Step Five you pass St Paul’s on the left.

Step Five: The Apothecaries

N 51° 30.788 W 000° 06.197

We go from one Hall that has a lot of interesting things on the outside, to one that as hardly anything with a number on it. There are plenty of interesting things in the court yard – have a peek in if it is open. As I’ve tried to make the stages of this cache 24x7 I’ve had to choose something external near by the entrance. 150 (or perhaps 180 - somebody said it might have changed) is supported by what number? This will be E.

There are other caches near here.

Step Six: The Painter Stainers

N 51° 30.719 W 000° 05.680

The first hall bequeathed to the company in 1532 was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1670. It was repaired in 1776, extended in 1880 and reconstructed 1914-6. The present enlarged hall was opened in 1961. The question is which month of the year did J C Nicholson et el lay the foundation stone of the current premises (January = 1)? This will be F.

There are other caches near here.

Step Seven: The Inn Holders

N 51° 30.653 W 000° 05.485

There was a hall on the site by 1521 which was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt in 1670. Walter Cronin was Master and John Wylde was Renter Warden between 1920 – 192G.

There are other caches near here (including the From a Swan to the Canary series).

The final stage: the actual cache

It’s time to put it all together to find where the final cache is located.

The final location is in the form N dd dd.ddd W dd dd.ddd (where ‘d’ is a digit). You don’t multiply the brackets out; just solve each bracket to get the corresponding digit in the final coordinates.

Just to make guessing a little more difficult, I’ve used modulo 10 arithmetic. In simplest terms, what this means is that if the result is ten or more you just remove the tens – so 14 would become 4, 10 would become 0, 21 would become 1. Only apply the modulo rule once you’ve fully worked the bracket – so (9+2-3) becomes 8 and (8+4+5) becomes 7. None of the sums should result in a negative number, so you don’t need to worry about how to do negative modulo ten arithmetic.

As you can probably guess the first digit of both the northing and the westing, you can check quickly that you understand the way this should work.

Remember the cache is within the old City Walls. It is probably no more than fifteen mins walk from Step Seven. Read the cache description again for a hint to boost your confidence. If you really don’t want to go hunting without being confident that you’re going to the right place drop me a mail via the profile – you’ll need to provide all the values of A-G and the street name that you think the cache is closest to – I don’t promise same day responses! 

N 51 3(A+A+D+G).(A+G)(C)(C+D+E+F)

W 00 0(B).(A+D)(A+B+C+D)(C+D+G)

Careful where you look: I had 24’ GPS accuracy when I placed this cache due to local buildings.

The cache site is 24 hour access. Suggest you avoid trying the final cache at week day lunch times and commute hours as it will be very busy.

Plan B

If the cache has disappeared (it shouldn’t do, but I don’t want you to have a wasted journey in case it does), mail me via the profile telling me exactly where you where looking, the coords and the names of the two Livery Companies that have major buildings around here.

There are other caches in the neighbourhood of GZ also.

Acknowledgement

I got some of my inspiration for this walk from the London Footprints Livery Hall walk.