This is a two stage Multicache located in Sockburn. The home of the Sockburn Worm. The coordinates shown above are for the first stage. The first stage is a special camo Tag. On this Tag you will find the final coordinates for the slightly larger cache. Please be considerate when parking as the road can be narrow in places and can be quite busy at certain times.
Due to Muggle activity (even down this solitary lane!). We have repalced the final cache with a small container appropriate to the cache.
The Sockburn Worm was a ferocious serpent or man eating dragon (or could it have been a figure head from a Viking long boat?) The Tees in early Medival Times was navigable further upstream then it is now.
Legend has it terrorised the district of Sockburn during Early Medieval Times and was slain by Sir John Conyers with a Falchion (a type of sword). The Falchion was kept at Sockburn Hall until 1947 but is now housed in the Treasury at Durham Cathedral. Local legend has it that the slain beast’s grave was marked with a great, grey stone which still survives today but unfortunately is located on private land and cannot be accessed. Apparently the story of the Sockburn Worm so impressed the Officers of William I, seeking to raise support for the Norman cause, that Rogers Conyers (head of the family at the time) was made Constable of Durham Castle.
The Sockburn Worm is featured on the Darlington and District Scouting badge and forms part of the Coat of Arms of Darlington Borough Council.
In 1799 a farmhouse was built by the Hutchinson family and William Wordsworth and his friend Samuel Coleridge Taylor visited. William fell in love with one of the sisters and married her in 1802. Coleridge fell in love with her sister and this became the inspiration for his poem “Love” which references the local church and the tale of the Sockburn Worm. The legend of the Sockburn Worm also provided the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's poem Jabberwocky. Lewis Carroll (or Charles Dodgson if you prefer) was the author of Alice in Wonderland and Alice through the Looking Glass. He lived and was raised in Croft On Tees (less than 5mls from this location) where his father was the rector from 1843 to 1868.
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe “Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!”
He took his vorpal sword in hand: Long time the manxome foe he sought— So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought. And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! and through and through.
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head.
He went galumphing back “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe