The village of Benson now has only one church building in use and that is the Parish Church of St Helen
The Church
The church building is a Grade II* Listed Building said to have a 12th Century nave and chancel (re-roofed probably in late 15th Century) and 13th Century aisles. The tower rebuilding started in 1765 in the classical style, finished approx. 1781 by Stephen Townsend in Gothic style. The chancel was rebuilt 1862 by Charles Buckeridge.
On the east side of the church tower is a clock face with hours displayed in Roman numerals, not all of which are correct – you will need to spot this error as part of the cache. This mistake gained fame during the Second World War when Germany's English-speaking propaganda broadcaster, William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) promised an air raid on "an airfield near the village whose clock had two ******s"; RAF Benson was bombed soon afterwards.
The Cache
The cache is located at
N51 37.ABC
W001 06.DEF
You will need to look very carefully at the church tower, find the grave of someone whose name suggests that they were very agreeable, read the official noticeboard and then use the commemorative bench just outside the churchyard for a final clue and to sit whilst you work out where the cache is located!
A = Find the duplicated number on the clock face (see above), convert it and the corrected number to their decimal equivalent and subtract the smaller from the larger to get A
B = The number of doors on the west side of the church tower
C = The number of letters in the middle word of the second line on the gravestone
D = The number of letters in the name of the daughter on the gravestone
E = The 6th digit of the phone number on the blue noticeboard at the entrance to the churchyard
F = The number of times the letter T appears in the dedication on the bench outside the churchyard wall
The cache is now a short walk – less than 200m – away. It’s a slim magnetic silver box
If you would like to add to the Church Micro series yourself then please look here
http://churchmicro.co.uk/
There is also a Church Micro Stats & Information page that can be found at
http://www.15ddv.me.uk/geo/cm/index.html