Much Marcle is a busy little village in the South of Herefordshire lying between Ledbury and Ross-on-Wye. You can find out more about it on its own web site. Probably its major attraction is Westons Cider but there are also two other cider producers in the village; Lyne Down and Greggs Pit. Also worth visiting are the church with its amazing yew tree and the beautiful historic house, Hellens. See their web site for information about the many events held there throughout the year.
There are 3 pubs for you to choose from in Much Marcle, The Slip Tavern, The Royal Oak and the Walwyn Arms. Westons have tea rooms and the Scrumpy House Restaurant – you are spoilt for choice when it comes to places to eat and drink in the village.
Much Marcle hosts a Steam Rally every July and the Large Model Flying Display in September, and takes part in the 2 Big Apple events; Blossomtime in May and Harvestime in October. So there are plenty of reasons for you to make a return visit.
The co-ordinates given are NOT the position of the cache. They point you to a possible car parking place. The preferred parking place at N51° 59.524 W002° 31.145 has space for several cars but can sometimes be muddy so these alternative parking coordinates are provided. You will need to visit 6 places within the village to obtain clues for the actual location of the cache. Please be careful as you walk through the village, there are pavements for only a short part of the walk and the roads can be busy especially where you have to cross the main A449.
The cache is at the location: N51° 59.ABC W002° 30.XYZ
Your task is to fill in the values for A, B, C, X, Y & Z.
Start your walk at N51° 59.537 W002° 31.138 then make your way though the village to N51° 59.518 W002° 30.061 which is outside the Church Doorway and in the shadow of the 1,500 year old yew tree.
1. The first place is a cross roads, look on the signpost for the distance to Ross. This is the value for C.
2. Walk down the hill until you see a footpath on your left, it's just a few yards before the (second) new 30 mph speed limit sign. The footpath, which can on occasion be overgrown, takes you up some steps then turns left and then right. Continue until you see an information board on the righthand side of the fence just before you reach the kissing gate. According to the information board how many daughters did Emily have? Z equals this number.
3. You now have a choice. Pass through the kissing gate and follow the footpath to Watery Lane and then turn right. Or backtrack to the road and continue downhill. Either way you will arrive at the T-junction where there is an oak tree protected by a metal cage. Find out when it was planted and subtract the last digit of the year from the digit before that. You now have the value of Y.
4. Continue to walk down to the main A449 road, cross over and continue to a school road sign. Multiply together the first digits from each of the two numbers on the sign to calculate the value of A.
5. Keep walking until you arrive at the Memorial Hall. Add together the last two digits of the number you see on the front of the building, this will give you B.
6. Lastly walk on to the Church Doorway. How many points does the star on the downpipe hopper have? Add this number to one of the digits of the age of Anne Smith when she died in 1861. This is the value of X.
You now have all the information you need to lead you to the cache which is a medium size lock & lock box in a camo bag. Initial contents include logbook & pen, several little toys for kids, a wooden brooch, Beam Me Up Scotty TB and a FTF award. You may need to use stealth as passing traffic is always possible.
***** ...and the winner of the FTF Award goes to ... Lupus Lupus. Well done! *****