This Church Micro cache is placed near to St George The Martyr, Wolverton.
NB - The cache is NOT at the posted coordinates, also it is NOT in or on the church grounds.
You will need to visit the churchyard (entering by the east gate near the posted coordinates) to collect some information and then use that to calculate the coordinates where the container is to be found.
Firstly, here's some information about the church:
St George’s was built in 1843 as the District Church of St George the Martyr, Wolverton Station. It owes its existence to the London and Birmingham Railway Company, which opened the world’s first trunk railway in 1838, and their decision to site the important midway station and railway works in the parish of Wolverton. The church was built to provide a place of worship for the inhabitants of the new company town and was paid for by the railway company, with the help of the Radcliffe Trust. It is claimed to be the world’s first railway town church, beating St Mark’s Swindon (also a Church Micro location: GC4Y4WM) into second place!
The new church originally consisted of a nave and small chancel, with lancet windows in the Early English style. Its landmark feature is the tower at the NE corner of the nave, housing one bell and a porch in its ground floor. It is apparently the only church tower with a spire in Milton Keynes, although relatively small in comparison with the medieval steeple of Hanslope on the other side of the Ouse valley.
The church was enlarged in 1895-6 and the work consisted chiefly of the addition of north and south aisles to the nave in the form of a pair of transepts, a large clergy vestry on the north side of the chancel and an organ chamber on the south side. The work was concluded by Easter 1896.
The final enlargement of the church was undertaken in 1902, when the east wall of the chancel was taken down to enlarge it by 12 feet, and the original three light east window replaced by a five light window, with new stained glass. The original, more brightly coloured and better designed stained glass, of medallions of the Life of Christ in 13th century style, was mostly re-used in the side windows of the chancel. There are fine stained glass figures by Henry Holiday depicting Faith Hope and Charity, and Christ, in the double transept windows.
There have been other alterations in more recent years, including the big round west window in Hornton stone, and the installation of a church room in the north aisle and a kitchen and toilets under the west gallery.
Now the cache itself!
To find this cache, you'll need to visit various spots in the churchyard and collect some numbers. Each number is represented by a letter in the final coordinates at the bottom of this page.
Starting at the east gate (near the posted coordinates), enter the churchyard and turn to your left and look for the memorial to John James Meadley (N 52° 3.717' W 0° 48.439'). Just in front of the memorial, there's an inscription of three words.
Q1 – how many letter Us occur in the inscription? – This is A.
Q2 – how many letter Ps occur in this inscription? – This is B.
Q3 – how many letters in the middle word? – This is C.
Next, look nearby for the memorial to members of the Harnett family. (N 52° 3.711' W 0° 48.445')
Q4 – Marian Ellen Harnett died in which year? – Multiply the final digit by 2 to get a two digit result – this is D.
Now head back to the main path and head round the other side of the church and walk over to the west gate (N 52° 2.699' W 0° 48.507'). Look for a small black plaque on the wall to the memory of Arthur Maynard Webber.
Q5 – How many letters are there in the third word on the plaque? This is E.
Q6 – How many letters in the last two words on the third line? This is F.
Q7 – How many letters in the third word on the second line? This is G.
Q8 – How old was Arthur when he died? Subtract E+G from this to get a two digit number. This is H.
Now substitute the numbers you collected for the letters in the coordinates N52° AB.CD W000° EF.GH
If you want to check the solution you can do so using the checker here:
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.
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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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