The Church of Saint Andrew-by-the-Ford is near the River Arun, surrounded by a walled churchyard entered through a wrought iron gate. The Saxon church was built in about 1040, and substantially rebuilt by the Normans with a surviving early 12th-century Norman chancel arch with carved decoration. There are Saxon and Norman lancet windows in the north wall of the nave, which survives from the original building. Over a north door in this wall, which leads to a vestry, there are fragments of Anglo-Saxon interlaced carving. The decorate Gothic east window dates from about 1320 and the perpendicular Gothic west window dates from about 1420. The brick-built Jacobean south porch is from about 1640 and has a pedimented Dutch gable. The wooden bell-turret, painted white as a navigational landmark for ships, has two bells, the smaller of which was cast by Robert Rider, who is known to have worked 1351 and 1386. The font, carved from a square limestone block, may be Saxon or Norman and stands on a modern Bath stone. The building is listed in the highest category of the national grading system at Grade I.
This is a multistage Letterbox cache.
To find the cache you will need to start near the church entrance. Navigate your way around the church yard anti-clockwise gathering the clues along the way. I have chosen stones that should be quite obvious and you shouldn't need to go trampling all over the graves.
Find the grave of Bob, the Chaplain for Seaford College.
The last two digits of the year of his birth = ab.
The day of his death = c and the last digit of the year he died = d.
Find the bench dedicated to Martin.
The last two digits of the year he was born = ef.
The last two digits of the year he died = gh.
Find the grave of David Sandford.
His wife had an unusual first name, how many letters are there in it? = j.
The day she died = k.
The last digit of the year she died = l
Finally, find the grave of Anna Hull.
Take the last two digits of the year she was born = mn.
The cache can be located at N50 4A.BCD W000 3E.FGH.
Where A = j+k, B = n-h, C = a+c, D = b-m, E = c/h, F = f-h, G = d+l-g, H = e+g.
Cache was relocated on 07/06/2015. Please now subtract 188 from the Northings and add 279 to the Westings.
The cache is located a short walk from the church. It does include a small rubber stamp, please do not remove this from the cache. You will need to bring your own pen but having done all that maths I guess you would have on anyway!
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For full information on how you can expand the Church Micro series by sadexploration please read the Place your own Church Micro page before you contact him at churchmicro@gmail.com.
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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