A simple magnetic nano located in
a small park in Ross-on-Wye. The park contains nice play-area for
the children. Please do not attempt this from the road, as there is
no footpath and constant traffic - it should be approached from the
park. It is a short walk from Ross town and
The Prospect, so parking should be
easy to find.
Don't forget to
bring your pen!
This cache faces the Ross
Community Hospital and Doctor's surgery on Alton Street. This was
completed in 1997, and is built on the site of the old Ross Union
Workhouse. The stone and pink building facing the cache (to the
left) is the only remaining part of the workhouse buildings still
standing - this being part of the second workhouse building here
completed in the 1850's. The original workhouse was built here in
the late 1700's.
Life inside the workhouse was was
intended to be as off-putting as possible. Men, women, children,
the infirm, and the able-bodied were housed separately and given
very basic and monotonous food, such as watery porridge called
gruel, or bread and cheese. All inmates had to wear rough workhouse
uniform and sleep in communal dormitories. Supervised baths were
given once a week. The able-bodied were given hard work such as
stone-breaking or picking apart old ropes called oakum. The elderly
and infirm sat around in the day-rooms or sick-wards with little
opportunity for visitors. Parents were only allowed limited contact
with their children — perhaps for an hour or so a week on Sunday
afternoon. By the 1850s, the majority of those forced into the
workhouse were not the work-shy, but the old, the infirm, the
orphaned, unmarried mothers, and the physically or mentally
ill. In the 1881 census of the Ross Workhouse, the 147 people
living there included - the Master and Mistress of the Workhouse, a
nurse, a teacher and a porter and around 65 female and 77 male
'inmates'. These were aged from around 5 months to 84 years old,
and were a mixture of married and unmarried people doing various
trades. There were also 7 "idiots" and 1 "imbecile" in residence.
Entering The Workhouse with it's harsh regime and Spartan
conditions was considered the ultimate degradation. The workhouse
was not, however, a prison. People could, in principle, leave
whenever they wished, for example when work became available
locally. Some people, known as the "ins and outs", entered and left
quite frequently, treating the workhouse almost like a guest-house,
albeit one with the most basic of facilities. For some, however,
their stay in the workhouse would be for the rest of their
lives.
The Ross Workhouse (as with all
others) closed in 1930, and became the Poor Law Institution, and
finally a Hospital, before being largely demolished and replaced by
what you see today.
For more information on Ross
Workhouse, click here