FEET FIRST Mystery Cache

This is a puzzle cache so there will be no point in going to the published co-ords.

Have you visited a church lately?  Whether for the obvious reasons or not, most likely you would have walked through a Lych Gate.

Although the gates’ design varies from place to place, they normally follow a fairly basic pattern. There is usually a gate or perhaps a pair, and they form part of a structure that includes a roof and two walls parallel to the path. Some walls contain open spaces like windows without glass but each end of the structure is open to the elements. Running along the inside the base of each wall there may be a wooden or stone seat and sometimes a central block of stone.

Lych is an old English word for corpse. As the name suggests, they are associated with corpses and therefore with funerals. Long before the Reformation, and probably back as far as the 13th century, it was traditional for bearers to carry the body to church on a board. When they reached the lych gate, they paused and placed the body on the stone block. They would then take a short rest on the seats until the priest arrived to lead the procession into the church.

During the aftermath of the Reformation a large number of lych gates were destroyed or damaged, the reformers believing they had pagan associations. Some very old one's have survived but most had to be restored or re-built during Victorian times when most of the blocks and a fair few of the seats were never replaced. Had you noticed that sometimes the churchyard has more than one entrance? Could it have something to do with an age old belief, which seems to be ignored today, that a bride and her procession should never walk through a lych gate because it heralds bad fortune? In some areas, it was believed the bride would die at a very early age or the marriage would be a failure. Now, of course, those lovely old lych gates form a very suitable background to a wedding photograph.

Now to the cache. It can be located at N51 1A.BCD and E001 1E.FGH. 

PLEASE FOLKS, NO LOG SPOILERS AS TO THE LOCATION OF FINAL CACHE

Below you will find eight pictures of local lych gates. Identify the first letter of the village where the gates are located and use the grid below. So if Gate A was Ripple, the co-ord number needed for A would be 6.  All of the gates are within an 11 mile circumference of the end of Deal Pier. Come on, it's not that bad, half of the search area is the English Channel ! Good Huntin'. 

 

FTF Honours go to Julred !