MANCHESTER CORN EXCHANGE
A simple offset multi with the final location a short walk away.
At the listed coordinates, look above the entrance to the Corn Exchange building, and in particular the left of the two colourful heraldic mosaics.
Count the number of bees and add the two digits together. This is X. Look carefully as most are quite small. If your eyesight is less than perfect it may help to take a photograph and zoom in.
The cache can be found at N53° 29.(X-8)(X-7)(X-5) W002 14.(X-1)(X-1)(X-3)
The first Corn Exchange built on this site in 1837 was designed by Richard Lane. This was demolished in 1897 and replaced in two sections between 1897 and 1903. Each section was designed by a different architect. Before 1837 it traded from Hanging Ditch. In its heyday, 'The Corn & Produce Exchange', was the gathering spot for thousands of traders from all over the region. This continued until the economic depression of the 1920s and 1930s. Following the Second World War, trade gradually declined and the trading floor fell into disuse.
The building was used briefly by the Royal Exchange Theatre Company from 1976. It also served as a filming location for Granada Television's Brideshead Revisited.
From approximately this period until 1996 it became a gathering place for alternative communities and contained a large market with small stallholders selling clothes, jewellery and piercing paraphernalia, and second hand record shops. Many of the shops were temporary structures on the trading floor of the exchange, with other shops operated from permanent units and offices around the perimeter. There was also a small café in a basement area to the northeast of the ground floor. The exterior of the building also housed many shops in a basement area.
After being heavily damaged by the 1996 bomb many of these businesses were forced to move to new premises, mostly in the north of the city, where many foundered. The Corn Exchange was renovated and reopened as the Triangle Shopping Centre (because of its shape).