About the cache
Finding the cache is the easy part - it's accessing the log book that you may find a bit trickier. To get the cache you will require a 3 digit access code. You have 3 questions to answer, each of which should give you one digit. If you combine this cache with the other three caches in the Talygarn Trail series you should find each answer lies shortly after one of the caches in the series.
A - The Enchanted Boathouse:
What is the large number on the silver disc on the telegraph pole next to the boathouse?
B - The Curious Bench:
What is the fourth digit on the old bench?
C - The Haunted Tower:
One tower with two different dates - but on the third side what number does the arrow point to. Just before you are ready to pull?
Once you have the 3 numbers the code will be in the order ABC. There may also be room for some smaller swaps.
This cache location has close ties with my nearby Church Micro 2091 - Talygarn (for more info please read the descriptions of both cache listings).
It can also be done to extend the nearby Trinity's Walk series by Team-Brain.
Check your combination code
Click here to check you have the correct the code once you've answered all 3 questions.
About the location
Talygarn manor one of the most handsomely decorated houses in the Border Vale. It was rebuilt by George Thomas Clarke, the well-known engineer and historian, in the middle of the nineteenth century. Before Clarke's time there was a modest mansion on the spot which had been the manor house of the ancient Lordship of Talygarn. For many years the house had been in the possession of farmers and had fallen into decay.
The previous owner, the Rev. William Lisle, had improved the property and finding the roads unfit for a gentleman's carriage he had them widened and equipped with signposts. He was remarkably eccentric and always kept his room temperature at about 90 degrees (which, if true, would have been a very costly eccentricity in his day). It is said that he was a poison specialist who always kept a snake pit in the grounds to house his deadly reptiles.
That he could afford such indulgences is confirmed by the evidence of his life-style of which the 1841 Census Return gives us an intriguing glimpse. At the age of 75 the Revd Dr Lisle was living at Talygarn with his wife, two sons and a daughter, a woman companion and no less than 13 indoor servants. He had also built himself a large Rectory House at St Fagans, to which he returned shortly before his death in 1856 at the age of 90. His wife died at Talygarn in 1861 leaving it empty and neglected until it was purchased by Clarke in 1865.
G. T. Clarke carried out considerable alterations and extensions. In the drawing room, billiards room, reception hall and main corridor he introduced many fine examples by Biraghi, effected in 1895, the work for the most part by this well-known Italian artist being in the Venetian style, depicting various allegorical subjects, heraldic devices, Cupid and Caryatide figures, scrolls and arabesques featuring labour, art, etc. There are also some very massive and finely carved Carrara marble mantlepieces. The ceilings in the drawing room and reception hall were decorated with a large elliptical centre oil painting, surrounded by numerous other paintings of allegorical and mythological subjects.
By 1882 the mansion was virtually a new house, but even then Clarke added two libraries and a new billiard room. Electricity was installed in 1900 by the engineering firm, Messrs. Drake and Gorham of London. There was also and internal telephone service.
In the beautiful ornamental gardens that surround the mansion, Clarke made a pathway out of champagne bottles which, when spent, were hammered into the ground, the bottle bottoms forming the surface of the path. The full estate extending to 1200 acres.
After G.T. Clarke's death in 1898, his son, Godfrey Clarke, completed the work on the mansion by building the eastern tower.
Within less than half a century of G.T.Clarke's renovation work starting on the house the family dream was in tatters. With the collapse in industrial output after the First World War, George Clark's grandson was forced to sell the property.
In 1923 Talygarn was purchased by the Miners' Welfare for £20,000, and the house and 140 acres were retained to be used as a Convalescent Home for injured and sick miners. Subsequently it became a famous Miners' Rehabilitation Centre under the NHS.
One of the staff who worked at the house was a lady called Penelopen Price. She was the daughter of the eccentric Dr William Price, one of the driving forces behind the legalisation of cremation in this country. It appears that Penelopen was a nurse during the war and served at Talygarn Manor in Pontyclun, South Wales, which had been converted in to a hospital. When some of her items were sold at auction, amongst them was a poem written by one of the soldiers recovering at the Manor. Sadly, he didn't put his name on it. The poem isn't ever going to go down in history as one of the greats but it's certainly a bit of fun and gives an insight into life at the manor whilst it served as a hospital. I've typed it out exactly as it's written.
World War I - Christmas Poem
Twas Xmas day in the hospital
The great day of the year
When hearts were full of gladness
and all were of good cheer
In spite of seeming hardships
These lads had had out there
Their faces warmed with gladness
When sister shouted beer
When up spoke the worthy Commandant
How naughty you must be
To make of such an offer
Why not a cup of tea
Then out spoke a veteran Tommy
Who had fought for near 2 years
Oh Commandant pray forgive me
I know we all want beer
Next spoke a youth from Yorkshire
A noisy lad was he
I quite agree with the Commandant
Give me a cup of tea
To settle all the arguments
It was agreed for fun
To have a glorious feed
Of tea and Xmas bun
Now all you boys in khaki
I know with me agree
There's nothing better for fighting
Than Xmas bun & tea
So let us all be happy
While we'er in Pontyclun
and let us help the sister
To shift the tea & bun
Just prior to the latest sale of the house in 2001, The Telegraph ran a story about the house, entitled "Blood, Sweat and Towers". Reporter Max Davidson described his visit to the house after it had closed its doors as a Rehabilitation Centre:
"The present house, to be honest, is a mess. It looks like a field hospital that has been abandoned in a hurry by a retreating army. A wheelchair sits abandoned in the cafeteria, next to a table on which someone had piled copies of the New Testament. The wards are a maze of rickety metal beds and overturned mattresses. A surgical mask is hidden under a heap of stained pillows. Images of death and decay are everywhere.
In an upstairs corridor, an empty cardboard box is labelled "Deceased - September 1993 to May 1999". On the floor beside it, there is a handwritten yellow sign: "These do not belong in Talygarn". In the urinals, a stethoscope has been entwined around a tap.
As I wandered down a darkened corridor towards the door marked "Matron", I was quite prepared to find a 30-year-old corpse dressed like Hattie Jacques. The scenes of dilapidation, in a building where patients were still being treated less than a year ago, were quite distressing. Mercifully, the door was locked.
It takes a big leap of the imagination to picture remedial therapy taking place on these shabby premises. But Talygarn in its heyday was clearly a well-run hospital. Of the miners who were treated here, 80 per cent were able to return to work. A 1969 brochure in the front hall shows a flourishing rehabilitation centre, with more than 100 beds, three gymnasia and a heated swimming-pool."
The site was purchased in 2001 by Cowbridge Developments, a property development company. At each juncture in its history the grounds associated with the Talygarn House were reduced in size and scale, however the most recent development still boasts an impressive 86 properties, with some 14 other properties including Talygarn Mews and other stand alone freehold dwellings, along with a compact Country Park with beautiful parkland, lawns, shared lands and discrete sport areas for tennis and the potential for a bowling green.
Talygarn Manor itself is now a Grade II listed mansion which has been converted into a range of luxury homes, combining the architectural standards of yesterday, with the technology advances of today and tomorrow, to create beautifully crafted homes. The interior of this historic house still displays its original Venetian splendour fashioned by Italian craftsmen.
Many of the surrounding buildings have been converted into town houses and apartments incorporating many of the wonderful architectural features of Talygarn Manor itself.
In August 2009 the residents of the country park formed their own company which was set up to purchase the freehold on the grounds and to manage their own services.
*********** FTF ***********
arm-chair
**************************
*************************************************************************************
This series of caches has been placed with the kind permission of Dr & Mrs Hebdon and Talygarn Manor and Country Park (Dwellingholders) Ltd - please abide by the following rules:
The Countryside Code
Respect - Protect - Enjoy
- Be Safe - plan ahead and follow any signs
- Leave gates and property how you find them
- Do not damage signs and property belonging to others
- Protect plants and animals, and take your litter home
- Keep dogs under close control
- Consider other people
Follow the countryside code wherever you go. You will get the best out of the countryside and help to maintain it now and for the future
*************************************************************************************