A step back in time #4 Traditional Cache
Southerntrekker: This cache has been in need of care and maintenance for some time and as the owner has not responded to recent logs I am archiving it.
The Geocache Maintenance guideline explains a CO's responsibility towards checking and maintaining the cache when problems are reported. Caches that have been archived for lack of maintenance will not be unarchived. This is explained in the Help Center.
Regards
Southerntrekker - Volunteer UK Reviewer North Wales, London and Isle of Man www.geocaching.com
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***This series follows the route of 'Watling Street', a road built by the Romans which went from Dover on the southeast coast of England to Wroxeter in Shropshire via London and will pass historical points of interest en-route***
The cache is a magnetic micro containing a log book. Please bring your own pen to sign the log.
To the west of the cache you will see the entrance to Woodlands Farm which is a 90-acre working community farm with charitable status supported by volunteers, bordering Greenwich and Bexley in Greater London, dedicated to education and nature conservation.
Woodlands Farm was originally covered in dense woodland similar to that seen in Oxleas, Lesness Abbey or Bostall Woods. This woodland was cleared for farming, villages or settlements, and to provide a supply of timber for fuel and construction, e.g. for houses and ships. This clearance of the woodland began a long time ago, as far back as the Stone and Iron Ages, but it was most rapid during the last 2000 years.
Records of the management of Woodlands Farm begin at about the end of the 19th Century, when the Farm was run by the Baldock family. From about 1904 through to 1919 Woodlands Farm was run as a mixed livestock/arable farm, with cattle, horses, hay, cereals, root vegetables and fruit being the main produce.
Woodlands Farm was taken over in 1920 by the Royal Arsenal Cooperative Society (RACS), who developed the site as a ‘model’ pig farm, with piggeries, barns, paths and fields to grow food for the pigs. At the same time the RACS built a modern abattoir at the north of the site. Pigs were reared at Woodlands Farm and these, along with animals from other farms, were slaughtered in the abattoir to supply local shops and butchers with pork and bacon.
In 1983 the Farm was threatened with extinction by a Department of Transport plan to build a motorway, the infamous East London River Crossing, across the Farm and through neighbouring Oxleas Wood. The road would have involved destroying two-thirds of the Farm. After a record-breaking public enquiry and massive opposition to the road spearheaded by People Against the River Crossing, (PARC). the government eventually dropped the scheme in 1993.
The threat of the East London River Crossing finished the neglected Farm as a working entity. It lay semi-derelict until 1995 when the Co-Operative Wholesale Society (CWS) applied for planning permission to build houses on part of the land. This was rigorously opposed by a community group, the Woodlands Farm Alliance.
In 1997 the Woodlands Farm Alliance came to an amicable agreement with the CWS to buy the Farm on a 999-year lease with the help of a very generous grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund with matching funding from Bridge House Estate Trust.
The Woodlands Farm Trust was founded in 1997 to keep access to the Farm for community use on the principles of sustainability, conservation, education and community involvement.
------The Farm is open to the general public every day except Monday and Christmas Day between 9.30am-4.30pm. There is no entry charge but donations are always welcome and help to feed the animals-----
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Raq bs jebhtug veba srapr oruvaq cbfg.
Treasures
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