Belfast Hills Partnership No.06: The Gamekeeper's Multi-Cache
Belfast Hills Partnership No.06: The Gamekeeper's
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The cache has been placed at a remote place in the National trust property. The co-ordinates at the top of this page are not those of the cache. A two-stage multicache, with rough trails and upland hiking involved.
Please dress appropriately for mountain walking where the weather may change suddenly. Expect very wet ground underfoot at any time of year. Just under 5 km (round trip) from the given parking place.
The National Trust celebrated the opening of Divis and the Black Mountain on 27 June 2005: This means that Belfast's famous backdrop can now be accessed by the people of the city and beyond: all now have access to a mountain landscape that has been in private ownership for decades. Divis at 478 metres (1,562ft) and Black Mountain at 390 metres (1,275ft) form the dramatic backdrop to the city of Belfast. The mountains offer spectacular views across Northern Ireland, The Mourne Mountains, Strangford and Belfast Loughs, the Castlereagh and Holywood Hills and the Sperrins are all visible. So are the coasts of England, Scotland and the Isle of Man.
Divis and the Black Mountain are open all year round.
Access is free.
The location of this cache is in an area which was an estate owned in the past by wealthy landowners who played prominent roles in the establishment of Lisburn as a major player in the linen industry. Such names as the Charleys – whose ancestors in Lancashire were granted the right to Arms by Edward III in 1350, and the Barbours – John Barbour came from Paisley in 1784 to establish a linen mill. It was his great-grandson, Sir Milne Barbour who owned the estate in 1911 and his gamekeeper who lived at the place of this cache was Samuel Lyttle. Samuel Lyttle is recorded in the 1911 Census as living there with his wife, five daughters and one son. He operated the game reserve for a range of game including red grouse, and Sir Milne Barbour’s hunting horses roamed there in the winter. It is reputed that Samuel Lyttle was not popular as he treated anyone on top of the mountain, Divis, as a trespasser!
More of the history of these families can be gleaned from the annals of the Lisburn Historical Society, also from the Ask about Ireland website (visit link) and the Records of the First Lisburn Presbyterian Church where Sir Milne Barbour was Clerk of Session: he donated a magnificent stained glass window, of Job and his Comforters, to that Church in the centre of Lisburn in 1907.
The Belfast Hills stretch from Colin Mountain in the south to Carnmoney Hill in the north and are home to important wildlife and archaeological sites, stunning landscapes and scattered communities.
The Belfast Hills Partnership Trust was established in 2004 as an independent company with charitable status with the following aims:
To increase people's appreciation of the value of the Belfast Hills
To plan and carry out work programmes to protect and enhance biodiversity on the hills
To help people enjoy the hills through a range of well managed public sites
To improve the quality of life for local people
Getting there:
Leave M1 motorway at Junction 2 (Stockman's Lane).
Take the A55 (Outer Ring), signed Falls.
Go straight across first two roundabouts.
From dual carriageway, turn left on to Upper Springfield Road.
Continue for 2.5 miles, and a short distance past the national speed limit sign, turn right on to Divis Road.
Parking: Car parking is available opposite the entrance to the property, N54 35.960 W006 02.533. Please note this is the only access point to the Divis and Black Mountain environment.
Stage 1: There is an interpretation board here, adjacent to a Cashel, a site inhabited probably about 3000 BC. Have a look around and imagine how those dwellers lived so long ago!
Decipher the Letters from the clues on the board.
The cache will be found at N54 3A.BCD W006 0E.FGH, where:
AB is the number of million years since the formation of the Belfast Hills
CD is two more than the number of centuries AD when Belfast was founded
E is the number of birds visible on the display board
F is the number of persons in the board less the number of dogs in the board
G is the number of rivers which arise on Divis
H is the number of hundreds of National Trust sites of archeological and historical significance less 7.
Number check: A+B+C+D+E+F+G+H = 33
The medium-sized tab-lock box cache contains numerous novelty items, a set of AA batteries, various old Uk and foreign coins, some Party Poppers (3 only - do they still pop?)!
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lbh jvyy unir n tbbq ivrj bs gur fznyy bar!
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
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