Coal Post #152 Multi-cache
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Difficulty:
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Terrain:
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Size: 
(micro)
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A Simple Offset multi-cache (you can work it out from looking at
the photo)
Coal Post
#152
This cache recognises one of approximately 200 surviving Coal Tax
Posts. These posts are to be found in a ring around London at about
fifteen miles from the City of London. They were erected under the
London Coal and Wine Duties Continuance Act, 1861.
Coal sold in the City of London had been taxed since mediaeval
times and, as it was all brought in by sea to one or two riverside
wharfs, the collection of the duty had been relatively easy. A
similar duty was collected on all wine landed in London. By the
nineteenth century, however, there was increasing trade by canal
and rail, and various acts of parliament extended the catchment
area to a radius of about twenty miles from London. The City is a
small (one square mile) but influential part of London and in 1851
an Act was passed specifying the points, far beyond its boundaries,
where the collections could be made. Marker posts, inscribed with
this legal authority, were erected. Following enlargement of the
Metropolitan Police District in 1861 a further Act was passed and
new marker posts were set to show the boundary inside which the
duty was payable. Most of these later posts survive.
The erection of these posts was very much a last ditch attempt to
retain the tax in the face of growing opposition. The tax had been
running for at least two hundred years but within twenty years of
the posts going up it was abolished. The Industrial Revolution was
in full swing, London was expanding rapidly. The outer suburbs were
becoming towns and their residents beginning to resent paying a tax
which had very little direct benefit for them. One extreme case is
Caterham which lay (and still lies) outside the Metropolitan Police
District (MPD) but if coals were to be brought there by rail they
had to pass through the MPD and presumably were subject to the
tax.The powers to extract these taxes were abolished in 1889.
Most posts were made of cast iron and stood at four or five feet
tall, but the railway posts were large and impressive obelisks of
granite fourteen feet in height. All bore the City coat of arms.
Most of those surviving are painted white, with the arms picked out
in red, but the stone ones are often of a sombre black, still
bearing the stains accumulated on the smoky trackside. There are
five different forms of Coal Tax boundary markers in all. Most of
the posts are Grade II listed buildings.
The cache is a multi - micro cache. It is a multi as the Coal Tax
Post 152 is too close to our other caches in the series. Please
relocate the cache carefully and discretely.
From the CTP find the inscription (A&BC VICT CAP D) and then
calculate the co-ordinates. N51 15.(C-B)(D*B)(C-B) W 000
13.(A)(C-B)(B)
The cache has a log book but no pencil so please bring your
own
.
If any body would like to expand to this series please
do.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Va n ubyr va zbffl ybt