Hathern Trail No.7: "Wicked Hathern"
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This is one of a series of geocaches located entirely on public rights of way around the pretty Leicestershire village of Hathern and surrounding meadows. This cache is located in the village centre, close to the churchyard of the historic Parish Church of St Peter & St Paul,
This is a magnetic nano-cache containing a log book only. Some stealth will be required because the cache is on the street with houses nearby. For this reason we have graded the overall difficulty as 2.5
PLEASE ENSURE THAT THE GEOCACHE IS REPLACED CAREFULLY IN ITS ORIGINAL POSITION AND OUT OF SIGHT
The legend of "Wicked Hathern" derives from comments made by a 19th century clergyman, the Revd Edward Thomas March Philips, Rector of Hathern from 1808 for 51 years. Fed up with the cock fighting and drunken brawls in the graveyard of the Parish Church, he referred to Hathern as “a barbaric place and a cage for every unclean beast”. The village has been known locally as "Wicked Hathern" ever since. The legend now lives on in the name of the local micro-brewery "The Wicked Hathern Brewery", which is based in Hathern.
The Parish Church of of St Peter & St Paul is built of grey-green Charnwood stone. This stone was quarried from the Precambrian volcanic rocks of the local Charnwood Hills marking the ridge of hills to the south of Hathern. These rocks are amongst the oldest rocks in England and contain some of the oldest fossils known (e.g. the fossil animal Charnia, a "sea-lilly" like animal which takes its name from this area). Parts of the church are Saxon in origin, and it has a Saxon font, but most of the church was built in the 14th century.
The geocaches in the Series are:
No.1; "Starting-in-Style" (GC2E8Y8)
No.2: "Rock-On" (GC2E938)
No 3: "Back-on-Track" (GC2E94Q)
No.4: "Old Man Willow" (GC2E96G)
No.5: "Lonesome" (GC2EB9N)
No.6: "Balded-Ash" (GC2EBAN)
No.7: "Wicked Hathern" (GC2EJ8H)
No.8: "Fibonacci Pattern" (GC33JBY)
No.9: "Art Fry & Spencer Silver (GC33J0X)
No.10 (replaced): "Inspired View" (GC3H5DK)
Other geocaches may be added in due course
If you follow this small series you can make a circular route that can start and finish at Hathern Park, Pasture lane, Hathern.
For a short walk: from the Trailhead (Car Park) follow the Series in the order 1, 2, 3 and 4, then back to the Trailhead (Car Park).
For a longer walk: from the Trailhead (Car Park) follow the Series in the order 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 and 4, then back to the Trailhead (Car Park).
"Wicked Hathern" (no.7) is only a short distance along the road into the village from the Trailhead and could be added as a short detour either at the beggining or at the end of your walk.
For a nice long walk you could combine, "Wicked Hathern" (No.7), "Fibonacci Pattern" (No.8) and "Art Fry & Spencer Silver" (No.9) with the others in the series in the order 1, 4, 6, 5, 3, 2, 8, 9, 7
"Wicked Hathern" and "Starting-in-Style" can be reached by wheelchair and strollers but other caches in the series are across rough fields and tracks, and/or involve climbing over styles that are not suitable for wheelchairs, and may be difficult or not accessible to pushairs/strollers.
Why not walk to "Wicked Hathern" from the the Trailhead up Pasture Lane, via the ancient "cross" at the junction of Dovecote Street, Church Street, Cross Street, then walk along Church Lane to see the pretty little village church. Hathern Cross is a scheduled ancient monument believed to be medieval in age and an iconic feature that is greatly loved by the villagers. Its shaft is constructed of sandstone blocks mounted on top of a stepped base of Charnwood stone. The top of the shaft had to be repaired after it collapsed during a gale in 1916. Little is known about the purpose of the cross. Whether it was a preaching cross or a simple market cross is unclear. A single Charnwood stone located at the southwest corner of the base was perhaps used for teathering animals or may have been used as a whipping post. It is an enigmatic feature - it actually has no "cross" . Whether it ever had a cross on top is unknown. Maybe the top stone was a lantern head, as is found on other similar monuments.
You can also saunter down to the River Soar while doing this series and admire the pretty view of Normanton-on-Soar with its beautiful spired church across the other side of the river, and watch the narrow boats cruising on the river. You could also take in a couple of other nearby geocaches: "Zouch Rhymes with Scotch" (GC2135Y) and "Mind-your-manor" (GC2DT4F)
PLEASE ENSURE THAT THE GEOCACHE CONTAINER IS CONCEALED FROM VIEW
****CONGRATULATIONS to the "Rascalgaskells" for First-to-Find on Sunday 5th September 2010.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Pbeare bs Jvqr Fgerrg naq Puhepu Fgerrg.
Ybbx haqrearngu sbe shegure "vasbezngvba"