Wee Toun - Muckle Kirk Multi-Cache
theauldmill: Will have to archive this one for now as the cache keeps going AWOL
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
The above Co-ords are for the parking area near the church NOT the cache.
A short multi-cache in The Kirktown of Auchterless, a modest village with a magnificent gothic church and an older church in its grounds, now a romantic, ivy clad ruin.
The Kirktown of Auchterless lies in the northeastern foothills of the Grampians, 5 miles (8 km) south of Turriff. Situated close to the River Ythan, the settlement lies in a valley here known as the Howe of Auchterless, a name remembered in a traditional 17th-century ballad that claimed there was "many a bonnie lass in the Howe of Auchterless'. Today the most eye-catching feature is a Gothic red sandstone church built in 1877-79, with a spire added in 1896. This building replaced the earlier St Drostan's Church whose ruins to the southwest retain a bird cage bellcote with a bell dated 1644. There are marble tablets dedicated to the Duff family in the old kirk and in the new churchyard stands the Duff of Hatton mausoleum built in 1877. The farm of Chapel of Seggat to the northeast is associated with a former chapel adjacent to the Well of Our Lady.
This parish has been famed for the longevity of several of its inhabitants. A few instances of longevity may be noticed. Peter Garden, a farmer in this parish, died 1775, at the very advanced age of 132. He retained his faculties to the last. He lived under ten sovereigns; Charles I.; Oliver Cromwell; Richard Cromwell; Charles II.; James II.; William and Mary ; Anne; George I., II., and III. He was a page to Ogilvie of Banff, before that gentleman was raised to the peerage, and was one of the garrison in the old castle of Towie Barclay, when Montrose defended it against Argyle. He recollected having been sent, when a boy, to the wood to cut boughs for spears in the time of the civil wars. In his latter days he used to describe Montrose, "as a little black man, who wore a ruff as the ladies do now-a-days." He was married to his second wife when 120 years old, she being eighty, and danced with great glee on that occasion.
At the nearby farm of Hillhead of Seggat the novelist James Leslie Mitchell was born in 1901. Better known as Lewis Grassic Gibbon, he lived here for the first seven years of his life and used the name Seggat in the first volume of 'A Scots Quair', published in 1932.
Chief amongst the many prehistoric antiquities in the surrounding parish of Auchterless are the quartzite kerb cairns at Logie Newton which date from the 2nd millennium BC. There is a stone circle visible from the road at N57 28 283 W002 30 222.
Look for the gravestone of the much-travelled Barclays; it’s near the old Kirk.
Could they be associated with Towie Baclay Castle?
You need to solve the clues to get the co-ords to find the cache.
1) When was Yvonne born?...189? ?=A
2) Jane Mackay Gordon Barclay was born in Napier, New Zealand. How old was she when she died in London?...?? ?=B ?=C
3) Aileen was born in Sumatra. In what year did she die?...1?96 ?=D
4) Elizabeth Mary Frazer died in London, in what year?...194? ?=E minus 1
5) In what year was Doris born?...189? ?=F minus 5
6) Theodore Charles Barclay died in Singapore, in what year?...1??9 ?=G ?=H
7) Lieutenant Colonel Walter Patrick Barclay died from wounds received in action in Tunisia in 1943, in what year was he born?...1?99 ?=I
8) When was Theodore Charles Barclay born?...18?0 ?=J
N57 AB CDE
W002 FG HIJ
Now you should have the co-ords, head up the lane past the old manse. Signposted Charlesfield
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Lbhe tbny vf qbja n ubyr arkg gb n cbfg
Treasures
You'll collect a digital Treasure from one of these collections when you find and log this geocache:
Loading Treasures