This is a short multicache with all the information you need outside St Marie’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Sheffield city centre.
The Cathedral
The Cathedral is the mother church of the Catholic diocese of Hallam, which comprises all of South Yorkshire and parts of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It is also the seat (cathedra) of the Bishop of Hallam - currently the Rt Rev Ralph Heskett, C.SS.R.
The story of this church begins over 300 years ago in a house built by the Duke of Norfolk in Fargate. It was known as The Lord’s House and stood just round the corner from where the present cathedral is situated in Fargate (where the Next shop now stands). This house held a secret. Discretely hidden within was a Catholic chapel at a time when celebrating the Catholic Mass was still illegal.
By the early 1800s Catholics were allowed to practise their religion openly again and could build churches, provided they were set back from the public roadway. A modest chapel was built in the garden at the rear of The Lord’s House with a cemetery for Catholics between it and Norfok Row.
As Sheffield expanded with the Industrial Revolution, there was a need for a larger church and so the current church was constructed and opened in 1850, covering the whole area of the former chapel and the cemetery. The bodies were re-interred at the next nearest Catholic church at St Bede’s in Rotherham.
By 1889 the huge cost of building St Marie’s was paid off and the church was consecrated. It escaped the bombing raids over Sheffield in the First World War, but during the Second World War a bomb destroyed the stained glass windows of the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
St Marie’s church became a cathedral in 1980 when the new Diocese of Hallam was created from parts of the Dioceses of Leeds and Nottingham.
For more information on the Cathedral, click here.
The geocache
To find the geocache, go to the stated coordinates which are outside a doorway into the Cathedral. Here you will meet this clerical gentleman staring back at you. He looks rather smug because he knows where the cache container is hidden and you don't yet!
Now answer the following questions as you walk along the outside wall of the Cathedral along Norfolk Row towards The Crucible Theatre and round the corner on to Norfolk Street.
Firstly, how many golden spheres are there on the top of the gate on the right-hand side of the doorway (don’t include those on the other side)? The answer is A.
A short distance along the wall you will see a beige-coloured drain pipe vertically positioned against the Cathedral’s wall. At the top, a year is inscribed in a stylised form of Roman numerals. What is the last number in this year (i.e. the last two Roman numerals which denote a single digit)? The answer is B.
A little further on you will come to a green telecommunications box. What three-digit number is inscribed in white on the box? The three-digit answer is CDE, with each of the three digits of the number assigned to the corresponding letter.
As you continue walking along you will see a manhole cover set into the pavement next to a stone bench. In the top half of the cover there is a series of numbers preceded by the letters ‘MC’. What is the last digit in this series? The answer is F.
A few steps further on there is a sculpture set into the Cathedral’s wall above head height. The event it depicts is the Annunciation from the Gospel of Luke when the Archangel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would conceive and bear Jesus. Immediately below the sculpture in Latin are the words used by Gabriel to greet Mary on that occasion – how many letters are there in the last word of this Latin sentence (which translates into English as ‘with you’)? The answer is G.
Following the building round the corner to the left, you will come across the front door to Cathedral House. At how many minutes past the hour does the Cathedral office close from Monday to Friday? The two-digit answer is H.
Finally, near to ground level a little further along the street, there is a black H (for Hydrant) against a yellow background. What two-digit number is in the bottom half of the letter here? The answer is I.
Once you have numbers for all the letters (all of which are single digits apart from H and I), it’s time to make some simple calculations to arrive at the final coordinates of the geocache. Simply substitute the letters for numbers in the following formula:
N53 22. [A – F] [H – I – C] [D – F]
W001 28. [B – A] [B – D] [E – G – C]
The geocache is a short walk away in a very central location. Please beware of muggles who could be walking or lurking nearby!
Happy finding!
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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.co.uk
See also the Church Micro Statistics and Home pages for further information about the series.
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