Coolnacran Fort Letterbox
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Located at Loughbrickland
Loughbrickland is approximately 3 miles south west of Banbridge. On street car parking only. Park with care and consideration on Scarva Street beside the Health Centre and walk to the path entrance opposite the Health Centre at the junction of Scarva Street and the Old Newry Road.
THE CO-ORDINATES GIVEN ARE TO THE FIRST SMALL CACHE.
Walk through what appears to be a private entrance, leading into Loughbrickland House. Look for gates (painted deep red), walk through the gates on the main entrance, then take the opening on the right leading onto the woodland walk. It is clearly signposted with a finger post "Woodland Walk".
Simply follow the way markers around the trail with instructions given.
LETTERBOXING
A recreational hobby that individuals or familes/small groups of people can participate in. It started in the middle of the 19th century in Dartmoor when in 1854 a Chagford guide called James Perrot set up the first letterbox at Cranmere Pool on North Dartmoor. Originally it was just a cairn (small pile of rocks), the idea was for a walker to leave a message there for the next walker to collect and so on. Later, other boxes were established at Taw Marsh (1894), Ducks Pool (1938), Fur Tor (1951), and Crow Tor (1962). These boxes are deep into the moor and still represent a challenge. People from all walks of life go letterboxing, they spread from Cornwall to Scotland, the U.S, Holland, Germany and New Zealand. The boxes hidden contain a visitor's book and rubber stamp. When finding the box an impression of the rubber stamp is taken using an inkpad and stamped onto either a book or postcard. The visitor then either signs the visitor's book, or use their own personal stamp to leave their mark.
Letterboxing is done without the use of a GPSr, but with a recent interest in combining geocaching with letterboxing the LETTERBOX HYBRID cache has evolved. Basically this means that the two are combined using both a GPSr (to a lesser or greater extent) and clues to find the cache. In this case you will only be given the co-ords to the first cache. After that you will rely on clues to find the other two caches.
The next feature that applies to letterboxing and hybrid letterboxing is the addition of a stamp to the box that isn't to be removed by the finder. When you find the cache, you stamp the "box stamp" onto a logbook that you may carry. We appreciate that not all geocachers carry a log book - that's not a problem. Then you stamp using your own stamp (again you may not carry a stamp, don't worry), your "trail name", and the date you found the cache into the logbook, as normal. In letterboxing people keep track of how many boxes they've found and how many boxes they've placed, just like in geocaching, but more likely in notebook form.
COOLNACRAN FORT
Coolnacran Fort can be found in the grounds of the Whyte family house, built in 1704. The present owner, Dr Whyte, kindly agreed to give permission to grant public access to the wood in 2001. There is a designated, marked trail, so please stick to the paths as the grounds are private. Pedestrian access only. The peaty soil is fairly fragile so no bikes!. Dogs are permitted but must be kept on the lead at all times. Please note the path will be closed from time to time to accommodate archery competitions which take place in the woods – there is a note at the bottom giving dates of the archery competitions.
The walk passes the 2-ringed Coolnacran Fort on the way - It is a scheduled ancient monument dating from Early Christian times AD 500 -1200. Although raths (fortified farmsteads) are very common this is a 2 ringed fort indicating status or wealth. The ditches and banks provided ‘a defence against wolves, hostile neighbours and Vikings’. Recent clearance of the overgrowth of laurels on this site has allowed the fort to re-emerge and it provides a quiet place for contemplation. The fort is about 100ft/30.48m across, with an inner bank of up to 5ft/1.52m high in places, and a ditch of up to 12ft/3.65m deep in places. It has a further massive bank and outside this, in places, is a well preserved ditch However, the northern boundary of the gardens of Loughbrickland House, created long ago in the history of the house, appear to have ‘flattened’ the southern boundary of the fort. Coolnacran, derives from the Irish for ‘little wooded place’, or ‘meadow of the trees’. During World War II the estate was occupied by Belgian troops This accounts for the bits of concrete and the old vehicle inspection pit you will see along the route.
You can walk into the centre of the fort via an opening near the interpretative board.
There is a good display of spring flowers along the walk including blue bells and the distinctive smelling wild garlic. Please take care not to trample the flowers. This area is well know for its large numbers of rooks and they can usually be seen/heard here in their hundreds! They are very sociable birds nesting in colonies known as ‘rookeries’ which vary in size from just 2 nests to 1000 or more. They are one of the first birds to nest building their nests in the early spring when you will hear their harsh ‘caw’ call as you walk through this section of wood. The eggs hatch in April.
THE CACHE
This is a three part cache with some slight twists - a LETTER BOX HYBRID cache. It is on paths on a circular route of approx 1.4km, only slight gradients in places, with a bit of a climb towards the fort. It is a beautiful woodland walk, at its best in spring. You are given the co-ordinates to the first small cache box. Inside the box you will find clues to take you to the second cache, which then holds the clues to the final cache - a medium sized tablock box. Since this is a hybrid letterbox cache there is minimal use of your GPSr. It combines a mixture of GPS use and basic navigational skills, along with your geocaching skills to locate the caches.
Please take a note from both small caches to guide you to the next part. Both are quite small tab lock boxes, camouflaged with black tape with a geocaching sticker on top. Please use utmost discretion retrieving and replacing the caches.
THE FINAL CACHE
The final cache box is a medium/large size tab lock box, camouflaged with black tape and with a geocaching sticker. When placed it contained logbook, pencil, sharpener, stamp and ink pad, stash note and a FTF pin but no swaps (TB's and Geocoins are welcome). PLEASE DO NOT REMOVE THE STAMP OR INKPAD FROM THE CACHE. If you don't carry your own stamp please feel free to be creative and leave an impression in the logbook (keeping it child friendly!) of your visit. This is your opportunity to be as creative as you like...please don't leave stickers - hand drawn "whatevers" are preferable, or use the stamp in the cache if you wish. Part of the fun is looking through the logbook to see what everyone else has left.
PLEASE NOTE that the area is used on certain dates for archery and the cache will not be accessible on these dates. This year (2009) the dates are:
7 June
4 October
17 & 18 October.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
1.ybt lbhe svaq - ng onfr bs jnlcbvag cbfg, orsber gur fgrcf
2.ebbg nebhaq