Fortified House or Bishop's Palace? Traditional Cache
Pinfold: Went to have a look for this to see if it was still there. The area has changed a little and the box has vanished. Time to archive and clear the area.
Fortified House or Bishop's Palace?
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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This is a bit of a history field trip, a good walk and a test of navigation skills all rolled into one. It should take about an hour-ish but it’s definitely not a cache and dash.
Locally this site is known as the ‘Bishop’s Palace’ but in reality it’s probably the remains of a fortified medieval manor house. All that physically remains to be seen today is the moat that once surrounded the house. Excavation work was carried out many years ago and the remains of a structure were uncovered.
The original building was known as ‘Herteswell Grange’ and was at one time owned by Sir John Constable in the early 1500’s, though the site pre-dates this. Strangely enough Sir John’s mother (possibly grandmother) was a very distant relative of mine –I’m descended from nobility apparently….what went wrong? :-)
The moat is a scheduled ancient monument and whilst most local villagers know of its existence, very few have actually visited it. It’s quite a difficult place to reach and receives few visitors as a result. It can be reached by a number of convoluted methods but I’ve devised a route for cachers that should get you through the myriad of small roads, fields, styles, an easily climbed fence and small bridge that lie along the route. All but the last few yards are on public footpaths, so you’re not trespassing –well aside the last tiny ickle bit of about 10 yards, but nobody will see you in a remote field. :-)
The cache is located very close to the moat but not within its boundary. The terrain varies with the weather and seasons but it can get very muddy and you may get wet as some of the fields are hayfields that may soak you up to your knees. When I visited the site I had to walk the footpath that went diagonally across a hayfield 20 minutes after a thunder storm and was very chuffed to have waterproof walking boots and the benefit of zip-off bottoms to my trousers afterwards. You might want to bring a change of clothes and footwear to leave in the car if the grass is long and wet, but hey, there’s no nettles! If the weather is dry you ‘might’ get away with doing this on a mountain bike but it’s not ideal.
When you get to the moat you may or may not see a great deal. I’ve been there in the spring when the grass was nibbled low by sheep and saw an obvious moat. When I placed the cache the moat field was growing hay so it was much less defined and I used the GPS to tell me where it was! The moat is said to be dry and whilst I do remember it as such, there might have been a soggy end so be careful. Have a look on Google Earth, it’s an obvious feature, possible soggy end on its east side, with the scant remains of a small field system around it.
Parking is best found in the village of Hickling. Park up either in the Plough car park (the current landlord as of July 2008 understands geocaching) or outside by the canal. You will need to start your journey on Mill Lane, which is just up from the pub. Mill Lane as its name suggests was the road leading to the local windmill. It was located by the buildings at the far end of this often-muddy lane but was pulled down at some point during the last century. It was still grinding corn about 100 years ago but only on two of its former four sails as an opposing pair were ripped off in a storm.
The cache is a small lock-n-lock style container with the usual logbook and pencil. There’s a few small swaps in there including a torch, a sachet of a special oil to prevent corrosion in anything metal and a pair of new AA batteries for a GPS. Thought I’d go for the practical swaps.
You can pick up three other caches from this location whilst you’re in the vicinity, so why not make a day of it.
Waypoints. Put these in your GPS as a 'route' and follow them in order. Number 10 is the cache site and 11 is the location of the centre of the ‘island’ within the moat.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Ng gur onfr bs n fznyy gerr
Treasures
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