Recommended parking is waypointed. The series consists of 20 caches but is do-able as a series of shorter walks. I believe the entire circuit covers 4.43 miles (7.12km)
I've given instructions assuming you're completing the caches in order, but you can do them in any way you like.
I completed the trail before and after the winter snows and all the route was quite passable in wellies. 2 points were muddy (11-12) or marshy(15-16)but still a comfortable walk.
The route follows public footpaths throughout but that includes passing across farm fields and through a farmyard. At points the footpaths disappear but I hope my instructions will keep you directed.
STILES ARE OF GOOD QUALITY BUT SOME ARE NOT DOG FRIENDLY.
The countryside was beautiful throughout. I hope you enjoy the trail.
THE FIRST TALE - THE TALE OF THE TALE!
Today, most people think of Gotham City as New York. The nickname was first used for that city by American writer Washington Irving in 1807 and was adopted by Batman author Bill Finger. They wanted it to represent any major US city so that many people could identify with it."
In one of his appearances in the comic, the Joker reminds Batman that Gotham means "haven for goats" - which is the true Old English meaning of the word.
It's thought that 'Gotham' travelled to the states through a very famous set of medieval English folk stories called 'The Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham'. This is a delightful collection of yarns that are are recocognised as the original urban myths. The 20 stories all describe the 'mad' antics of the villagers of Gotham.
However - 'Though this be madness yet there is method in it'- for in their apparent foolishness, the villagers are actually quite wise and cunning and frequently end up ahead of the game - the classic wise fools.
There is no record of anything as large as a village being here at Gotham: the only substantial dwelling was the medieval Gotham Manor. There are apparently only 2 places called Gotham in England - and the other one is in Nottinghamshire, where a story-telling monk said the stories originated when villagers in Gotham heard that King John planned to build a castle in their neighbourhood and in Robin Hood country, they clearly didn't want that - so they told the King's land agents stories about the madness of the locals and this successfully persuaded the king to go elsewhere.
One such story about King John's land agent stated that he arrived one summers day to find all the villagers trundling their carts to stand on the sunny side of the barn - so that they hay in the barn would be shaded and wouldn't go brown. This is typical of some of the stories whose humour are a bit lost on us today.
However, some scholars recognise that there's some compelling evidence that THIS was the original Gotham!!!
These stories originally grew from the oral traditions across the country. However, someone collated 20 of these yarns and they were published under the title: 'Merie Tales of the Mad men of Gotham'. Most scholars believe the author was Andrew Borde(c. 1490 – April 1549).
Borde was quite the renaissance man. He was a monk, a physician, a writer, an overseas envoy for Thomas Cromwell and even claimed to be the first man to bring rhubarb seeds to Britain! He was born in Borde Hill near Cuckfield and lived and wrote in ‘The Mint House’in Pevensey, where his brother Richard had been the vicar.
As one scholar wrote: 'If Borde wrote, as it seems likely, on local places and events then it would be obvious that the Gotham he mentioned would be the one which lay only a few miles from his front door and not in Nottinghamshire or elsewhere. Maybe the dreaded ‘Marsh Fever’ of the locality might have added to stories of ‘mad’ villagers?'
I hope you enjoy my version of the tales of the Mad Men of Gotham that accompany these caches.
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FIRST TO FIND: GUNNERBOB