To find the starting trail you can take N51 and W00 for granted LV111 CCXV - XXXV111 DLXXV
YOU DO THIS CACHE AT YOUR OWN RISK
IN PLACES THE GROUND IS VERY UNEVEN WITH TREE STUMPS - POT HOLES - CAN BE VERY MUDDY/SLIPPERY WHEN IT HAS BEEN RAINING
This cache has been rated to account for all levels of caching ability - it may be harder at different times of the year and you may find it easier/harder than the next person
As with many night caches you are going to be following reflective markers.
Most of the time there will be at least one marker visible ahead of you; if you come to a gap continue along the obvious trail until you pick up another marker...........
In some spots you may need to move around a few paces to get a clear view of the next marker
Follow the route of singular markers until you see a tree where you will find TWO white markers looking back at you ......look around .this is where you will find the hidden treasure
please make sure the cache is replaced and recovered well thanks .
The final part can be wet and muddy at times...
According to the popular legend, often told with an emphasis on hauntings by her ghost, Katherine came into highway robbery in her husband's absence in order to redress her fast-dwindling fortune. During this time many highwaymen were Royalist supporters bereft of home, estates or income, who were left to make a living as best they could, so any courteous highway robber was perceived to be one of these well-mannered gentlemen. Not all highwaymen were well-born like French aristocrat Claude Duval or James MacLaine, who was the second son of a minister, but this romanticised portrayal extended to such working-class robbers as MacLaine's partner William Plunkett, as well as Richard Ferguson, George Lyons, Tom King, John Nevison, and John Rann. However, while it is possible that Katherine Ferrers could have turned to highway robbery, there seems to be no historical proof that her accomplice "Ralph Chaplin", ever existed.
He was supposedly caught and executed on Finchley Common either on the night of her death, or soon after, which conveniently serves the legend. The unknown circumstances of Katherine's early death have fuelled speculation. The persistent rumour is that she was shot as a highwayman on Nomansland Common in Wheathampstead, and died of her wounds while trying to ride back to a secret staircase entry at Markyate Cell. Her body was supposedly discovered wearing men's clothing before her servants recovered it and carried her home to be buried
Markyate Cell was built on the site of a 12th-century Benedictine Priory and takes its name from a cell, or smaller structure, that served the monastery. It was converted at great expense into a manor house in 1540, and then rebuilt in 1908 after a fire. When a secret chamber was discovered by workmen in the 1800s behind a false wall next to a chimney stack, it gave new life to the legend. However, there is a serious inconsistency in this story as there is no record of Katherine ever having lived in Markyate Cell, as it was leased to tenants after her father's death. The property, which is not especially close to Nomansland Common, had actually been sold five years earlier.
Apart from robbery, a catalogue of mayhem in the area was later attributed to Katherine that included burning houses, slaughtering livestock, even killing a constable or other officer of the law. Much of the supposed activity might be blamed on bands of brigands and the unrest relating to the Civil War, and there is no confirmation as to whether the mayhem and robberies in the area ceased with Katherine's death.
The last member of the House of Lords hanged in England, the "wicked" Laurence Shirley, Earl Ferrers, was executed at Tyburn for the murder of his manservant in 1760, one hundred years after Katherine's death.
there is no contemporary mention of her career and death as a highwayman in histories published before the 4th Earl Ferrers's execution
While it has also been proposed that the term "wicked" could have been applied to Katherine solely because she allowed the family estates to fall into ruin, this is unlikely since many Royalist families suffered many of the same reverses without this nomenclature being applied to them. In addition, it was Katherine's husband who controlled, and sold off, most of the Ferrers family assets; as his wife she would have been powerless to stop him.