History and Origins
The Domesday Survey of 1086 recorded two churches under the Manor of Warblington (which was then included in the Manor of Westbourne) and since only one ancient church is now known in the neighbouring parish of Warblington-with-Emsworth it is likely that our building was the second ancient foundation. Additional evidence for this comes from two sources:
i) By 1071 Roger de Montgomery had the right to hold a Fair at Westbourne on 29 August, an obscure Feast day in honour of the Beheading of St John the Baptist. Such Fairs were generally associated with the Church, so it seems probable that there was already a church in Westbourne with this, very unusual dedication.
ii) During Victorian restoration work, the then Rector (the Revd J H Sperling) reported that below the present flooring he saw ‘large square bases of early Norman pillars, on which the later pillars had been build’. Such supporting evidence suggests that the original church was build in 11th Century or before, although the main architectural evidence is from 13th-16th Centuries, with heavy restoration in 19th and modern additions in the 20th Century.
Now for the cache
At the given coordinates you will find a war memorial. The answers are all from the side representing the Second World War.
A, F, G = numbers of letters in 6th name in left column
B = number of letters in 1st name minus number of letters in 2nd name in left column
C = number of letters in 7th name in right column
D = number of letters in 4th minus 8th names in left column
E = number of letters in 7th minus 1st names in left column
H = numbers of letters in 4th name in left column
I = number of letters in last name in right column
J = number of letters in 1st minus 3rd names in right column
The cache may be found at N 50 AB.CDE W 000 FG.HIJ
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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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