A small lock and lock box (7x7x5cms). It will hold only small items, geocoins, a travel bug with a small attachment.
This is my first geocache in celebration of my 50th find. For the 'First to Find' there is a 50 year old 3d piece amongst the items in the cache.
Park on the road signposted to Wash off the A624 where just under the railway bridge there is roadside parking for the Chinley Independent Chapel. (Worthy of a tour in its own right. It is a beautiful Georgian Chapel built 1711 and one of the oldest non-conformist congregations.)
From the roadside parking take the footpath between the boundary wall of the church and the railway bridge. Keep to the footpath as you follow the church boundary wall along the busy A624 towards the viaducts. As you come to the end of the church boundary wall you will see a tarmacked public footpath on the other side of the road. Cross to it with care, as the road is very busy. You will find the cache along this footpath 'underneath the arches’.
The cache is sited on a tarmacked part of the public footpath. Should you wish to explore further this footpath becomes a muddy earth path as it leads down underneath the arches via a narrow (railway sleeper width) wooden bridge over the Black Brook. Children should be supervised as the path and the surface of the wooden bridge can get slippery.
At 100ft tall, this monumental bifurcated railway viaduct towers over Chapel Milton. The viaducts were built in two stages. The first of the lines over Black Brook was built in 1867. A stone viaduct (built in 1885) replaced the original timber one which collapsed; it took the Midland Railway's track from London to Manchester. The later viaduct (built in 1894) curves gracefully to the east towards Sheffield. A connecting line to the north of the viaducts creates what has been called ‘The Chinley Triangle’, this can be seen on an OS map of the area.
The trains using the lines over the viaducts no longer carry passengers. They carry a variety of freight trains, mainly consisting of stone trains from the quarries at Peak Forest, Tunstead and Dowlow. You might see such a train 'parked' on the viaduct.
Listen to "Underneath The Arches" sung by Flanagan and Allen link