Located just off an old railway track near Marlborough, next to a
bridge. A history of the area is provided in ‘More Tracks
Long Gone’ (GCQ1QD) which is located nearby.
The closest car parking is in a lay-by about a mile north of
Marlborough on the A346 to Swindon at N51 26.256 W001 43.932. A
footpath begins on the opposite side of the road to the Northern
end of the lay-by. The road tends to be busy and fast, so caution
is advised with children and dogs.
**** Please note that the lay-by used for parking is currently
closed during roadworks. These are anticipated to last until
16/04/2010. The closest alternate parking is either in Marlborough
or, where possible, off the A346 towards Ogbourne Maizey and
Ogbourne St Andrew. The cache can be approached along the Chiseldon
and Marlborough Railway Path ****
The footpath leads to two parallel footpaths along the
hill-side, the upper one being the old railway track. There are two
other caches close by: ‘Marlborough Railway & Golf
Course’ and ‘More Tracks Long Gone’. There is a
permissive path (not shown on the OS map) between the upper and
lower paths from a point between this cache and ‘More Tracks
Long Gone’ which provides an easy circular walk to the
parking spot of around a mile.
The cache is in a 2 litre tuck box in a camo bag. The ground is
quite steep when approaching the cache so caution is advised.
There was a First-To-Find prize of an un-activated geocoin -
congratulations walk tall
Letterboxing
The hobby of letterboxing started on Dartmoor in the middle of
the 19th century. In 1854 James Perrott, a Chagford guide, set up
the first letterbox at Cranmere Pool on North Dartmoor, the idea
was for a walker to leave a message there for the next walker to
collect and so on. Later other boxes were established at Taw Marsh
(1894), Ducks Pool (1938), Fur Tor (1951), and Crow Tor (1962).
Today although there are now thousands of letterboxes hidden on the
moor, they are generally well hidden and unlikely to be found by
the casual hiker.
Letterboxes typically contain a rubber stamp and a
visitor’s book. When finding the box an impression of the
rubber stamp is taken using an inkpad and stamped onto either a
book or postcard. The visitor then either signs the visitor’s
book, or uses their own personal stamp to record their visit.
There is no official committee that organises the hobby, but an
informal ‘100 Club’ exists. To be a member and receive
the badges and membership card a Letterboxer has to visit 100 boxes
on the moor, and have visual proof of them (team Slogger007 joined
the 100 Club in the early 1990s).
Letterboxing is to this day still concentrated in the Dartmoor
National Park, but has also spread to other parts of the UK.
Interest in letterboxing in the U.S. is generally considered to
have started with a feature article in the Smithsonian Magazine in
April 1998. Geocaching has an obvious cross-over with letterboxing,
hence the ‘letterbox hybrid’ cache.
How does a letterbox work?
1. Please sign the log book as usual, or use your personal stamp
if you have one!
2. You can then stamp your personal log book with the
cache’s stamp. A supply of card is provided if you do not
have a log book.
3. There is a log book, stamp, ink pad and supply of card inside
the cache, these are not items intended for trade; they are meant
to remain in the cache so that visitors can use it to record their
visit. You are welcome to trade the other items in the
cache.