St Hilda’s Danby Dale Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(small)
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The cache is located near to St Hilda’s Church in the beautiful Danby Dale, one of the most stunning locations in the North Yorkshire Moors National Park. Plenty of parking near the Church.
The Church of St Hilda, Danby, is in one of the loveliest settings imaginable. The peace of the surrounding heather-clad moors turns this into a haven of tranquility. However, why it was built in this position is a bit of a mystery, as the present village of Danby is two miles away! One theory is that the village itself has moved, with the present village of Danby developing with the coming of the railway. There is evidence of settlement near to the Church and Danish names such as Wandels and Tofts (the names of the roads leading to the Church – look on an OS map), suggest more houses. The next theory is that the Church was built central to a scattered agricultural community; lots of old roads and paths lead to the Church. The Church itself is well worth a look with the earliest remains being Saxon. In the keystone of the chancel arch is a Saxon Cross on its side, put there in the 1901-03 restoration. In the Church porch, near the inner door to the Church, is a Norman gravestone which for a long time was used as a stile in the wall of the churchyard! The Church tower was built in the fifteenth century with some of the stones used in its building being ancient burial slabs. Some possible fourteenth century floriated grave slabs are visible above the inner doorway of the tower into the Church. The most well-known of the Church’s vicars was Canon Atkinson who came to the Parish, aged 33, in 1847 and remained until his death in 1900. He wrote many books, with ‘Forty Years in a Moorland Parish’ still in print now. This book is a great resource for local historians and family history researchers as it tells of life in an isolated Yorkshire parish over 150 years ago. The Church of St Hilda has copies of its many Parish records, along with graveyard plans, available for looking at, inside the Church.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Tngr