Four Forts Part 4 - Jack's Castle
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Four Forts is a series of caches situated on Pen Ridge, a North - South ridge, running from Alfreds Tower to Penselwood. Each cache is hidden close to the site of a castle or fort. The name of the series is heavily influenced by the amount of horse riding that takes place in the area - if you don't see a horse, you will see evidence of its passing (hoof prints - what else!)
The caches in this series are independant of each other and can be completed in any order. There is information contained in each cache which, when collected, will enable you to complete the bonus cache of Center Bugs. These caches utilise the permissive paths through the Stavordale and Stourhead Estates. An OS Landranger 183 is recommended.
Although the area appears rife with castle and forts, I struggled for a while to find my fourth castle/fort. I wanted to hide a cache at Castle Orchard as it is the third M+B castle site in the area. Unfortunately, it sits in the gardens of a house and they probably wouldn't appreciate lots of uninvited cachers appearing in the flower beds. It can be glimpsed, however, during Hedgehunters Pen Pits Cache. I also considered using Park Hill Camp Hill Fort (well worth a visit in the spring to see the blue bells) but Hedgehunters have already placed a cache there. Luckily there was one (slightly tenuous) option left.
As you approach the cache co-ordinates, you should find yourselves emerging into a clearing located in Jack's Castle plantation. In front of you is a small oval intrenchment known as Jack's Castle. In reality, this mound is a Bronze Age Barrow. It was excavated on 14th November 1807 by Richard Colt Hoare. Here is his account of the excavation:
"A little to the west of Alfred's Tower is a large mound of earth, vulgarly called JACK'S CASTLE, and generally considered as one of those beacons, where in former times, fires were lighted to alarm the neighbourhood on the approach of an enemy:
"And flaming beacons cast their blaze afar,
The dreadful signal of invasive war."
Its elevated situation over the great forest of Selwood, commanding a distant view of the Severn, was well adapted to such a purpose, and might have been so used; but I always had considered its original destination to have been sepulchral, and so, on opening, it proved to be.
After digging for some feet through a soft sand, we came to a thick stratum of picked flints, under which was deposited an interment of bones very minutely burned, enclosed within a cist, and amongst them a small lance head of brass, and an axe or hammer of a species of stone, called Sienite. The lance head had been esteemed valuable by the Briton its possessor, for it was protected by a sheath of wood. The axe is one of the most perfect we have discovered, and is very nicely formed. The high antiquity of this tumulus, which I shall call SELWOOD BARROW, is satisfactorily proved by the articles found within it."
Richard Fenton, a lawyer and author who became friends with Colt-Hoare after meeting him at Stourhead House, also attended the excavation. His description of the event is also included:
"On this symptom the gentleman who presided at this business, and under whose eye the solemn process was graduated, descended into the opening that had been made, and by some minute, and to us mystic observations, feeling as it were the pulse of the barrow, was justified in pronouncing that "the consummation devoutly to be wished" was at hand; for no sooner had he pronounced this, than the cyst or factitious cavity, in which, instead of an urn, the ashes of the dead were deposited, was discovered, among which was found a stone hatchet, with a red blotch over part of it, as if it had been stained with blood, grown after a lapse of ages to look like red paint, time not having the power to efface it: this little weapon was highly finished. There was likewise a piece of a spear's head, of brass or mixed metal, the produce of countries more civilized, the effect of barter, for it hardly can be supposed that a people who had the means of fabricating such a weapon of metal would submit to the slow and tiresome process of resorting to stone and flint."
Recommended Footwear: Wellies would be a safe bet.
You are looking for an ammo box (it may not be the size you are expecting). Don't forget to record the info. found at the bottom of the box - you will need it for Centre Bugs.
Parking for this cache is either at 51°06.310N 002°21.715 and then walk along the ridge, following the Leyland Trail and McMillan Way for just over a kilometer through Stourhead Woods heading towards Alfred's Tower or jump back in the car and drive to the parking by Alfred's Tower at 51°07.000N 002°21.600 where you will reach Jack's Castle after a five minute walk - it will be muddy!.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va gur gbc bs na byq, zbff pbirerq fghzc.