Now we are approaching our 700th find, we thought it was about time to hide our first Geocaches! We regularly travel from Preston, Lancashire to visit our static caravan at Southerness. This is a base from where we also enjoy hunting caches up in Scotland. This cache is located on the road leading to Southerness, and we travel through this lost Scottish village of Preston as we approach our "home from home!"
Today, all that is left of the once sizeable village of Preston is a weathered sandstone cross enclosed in a circular wall at the rear of East Preston Farm. Our knowledge of Preston's history is scant, despite the village being given the rather grand title of a "Bugh of Regality" in the 1660s. Samuel Arnott, in his Antiquities of Kirkbean, published in 1895 (DGNHAS Transactions), noted that, `according to one account, it had the privilege of holding three, and according to another four fairs annually.` Preston is also believed to have had its own jail, suggesting that it was once a community of some size. Now it is often referred to as the `Lost Burgh`, the population having dwindled to only one by the early 1840s. The cross - probably once the village market cross - was unearthed and erected on its present site around 1850, having previously lain buried for some years. From Dumfries & Galloway - David Carroll.
The cache is sited on the main road. As highlighted recently, care should be taken if parking nearby, since it can be quite fast flowing and certainly busy in high-season. We have added a parking waypoint a few metres across the road.
Preston Cross is located behind the farm, and can be viewed from this location. The log sheet is inside a small micro built in to the cache hide. You may need tweezers to extract the log, please bring your own pen to sign the log!