This cache is one in a series placed around Chapel-en-le-Frith located at the sites of old ancient mansions. The area is noted for the high proportion of great houses. These are sited on the remnants of the estates carved out, or allocated by the early Norman Kings to the Foresters and other royal workers within the Royal Forest. A charter of 1222 lists the men whose family names (often based on pre-norman place names) are still evident in some of the halls, mansions and houses in this cache series.
Old Hall Whitehough: A miscellany
Some writers consider the ‘hough’ in the name to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon for hall – ‘hof’. This might indicate that even before the Norman conquest this was a settlement of some substance. Certainly by the time the Forester’s Chapel of Ease was being built in 1225 in what was to become Chapel-en-le-Frith, there was a sizable hamlet in Whitehough.
Through the middle ages the Kyrke (or Kirke) family were the major landowners in Whitehough and are responsible for the Elizabethan Hall in the centre of the village. George Kirke was groom to the Royal Bedchamber of Charles I and attended the King at his execution in 1649.
In 1806 the 160 acre Whitehough Estate was sold off in small lots. John Booth bought the hall and its adjacent land. He built the Whitehall Paper Mills on this land in the valley.
Adjacent to the Hall there has been a licensed inn for 400 or so years. It was a coaching inn and was known as the Red Cow. It was bought with the Hall in 1926 by Mr Peatfield with the intention combining the two properties into the Old Hall Hotel, but he was prevented by the licensing authorities from realising that plan. The current owners of the Elizabethan Hall continue to own the adjacent pub.
In order to work out the cache co-ordinates you need to find 2 numbers A and Z at the co-ordinates for the listing.
Once at the site of the listing co-ordinates look for the 2 windows on the oldest section of the Old Hall (with a small courtyard in front), one at first floor level and one below on the ground floor.
Count the mullioned sections/windows in the first floor window, this number is A.
Count the mullioned sections/windows in the ground floor window, this number is Z.
Insert the numbers into the following calculations:
North: (A+Z) x A
West : (A x 30) + (Z x 3)
Add the results of your calculations to the last 3 figures (the decimal minutes) in the listing co-ordinates to give you the cache co-ordinates.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.