Newton Hollows Traditional Cache
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Difficulty:
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Size: 
(micro)
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Newton Hollows Newton Hollows is a superb example of a medieval hollow way. Over hundreds of years it was hollowed out through the constant passage of people, carts and animals. It originated as the Roman road between the legionary fortress at Chester and the important Roman manufacturing centre at Wilderspool in Warrington. In the 12th century it was known as the 'valley of the Demons'. It was thought to be haunted and travellers feared an encounter with the 'Hound of Hell' - a huge slavering black dog with great white teeth like knives. "As long as there has been visitors to Chester, people have been writing guidebooks to help them find their way around and to teach them a little of the extraordinary history of the city. The first such we know of, the De Laude Cestrie ('Of the Praise of Chester') was written around 1195 in the cloisters of Chester Abbey by a monk by the name of Lucian. His work is, in fact, the earliest guidebook to any provincial English town, and only a little later than the first-known description of London. Lucian is one of the few members of the monastery, apart from the Abbots, that we know by name. He was almost certainly English, not Norman or Welsh (British), and was educated in Chester at the Collegiate Church of St. John the Baptist. "The native of Chester remembers how three roads branch off outside Eastgate and how beautiful and pleasing are the names of the places to which they lead. The road straight in front straight in front leads to Christ's Town (Christleton), that on the right to the Old Ford (Aldford) but if it turns to the left it comes to a place which they rightly call the Valley of Demons (Hoole) with reference to the hiding places of those who lie in wait... the wanderer... is despoiled by thieves and robbers". This latter road took its origins in the Roman road which ran from the fortress of Deva, along the line of today's Frodsham Street and Brook Street, through the suburb of Hoole and on to Frodsham and Warrington. Much of the route remains in use to this day- although some sections, as at the Newton Hollows in Hoole, are now little more than footpaths. Hoole Heath in Lucian's day had been granted by the Earls of Chester as a sanctuary for criminals. In addition to their attentions, nervous travellers had also to run the risk of encountering The Hound of Hell- for it was believed that the hollow way along the old Roman road was haunted and that hundreds of sightings of a huge, black slavering dog with "great white teeth like knives" were reported here. For this reason, the Fraternity of St. Anne's set up a 'cross' at the head of St. Anne's Lakes- where the Flookersbrook public house is today. It was here that travellers stopped to pray for protection from the 'devils' ahead. This 'cross' was not a true cross but actually part of a medieval statue which, for some reason, "offended" a noblewoman in Clwyd.The statue was put on trial, found guily and hung! The rope, however, broke so the statue was was instead cast into the waters of the River Dee where it was washed up under the walls of Chester. Part of it was buried in St. John's Church and the rest was set up by St. Anne's Lakes where it remained until the Civil War in the Seventeenth century, at which point it vanished without trace. Readers will be relieved to know that Lucian's 'devils' have long since been driven away and Hoole is now a pleasant residential suburb.” http://www.chesterwalls.info/quotes/lucian.html The cache is wheelchair accessible from the second set of pkg co-ords. ****CONGRATULATIONS TO T-MEX ON FTF!!!😄****
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
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