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Witch Craig - The Old Cross Traditional Geocache

Hidden : 4/30/2023
Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
2 out of 5

Size: Size:   small (small)

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Geocache Description:


The Witch Craig Woods is an 8 hectare site that combines both a memorial garden and a hilly, woodland environment with walking routes. At the top of the hill is the Witchcraig Wall - a small enclosure built in 2003 to provide a resting place for hill walkers whilst exhibiting the geological heritage.

There is also a 13th Century Refuge Stone near the Witch Craig Wall - which marks an area ruled by the church law of the Torphichen Preceptory under the Knights Hospitaller.

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Located near the cache is an archeological curiosity, a square stone base with a hole in the middle.  The exact location has been added as a reference waypoint. Catalogued by antiquaries in the 1850s, the base is described as  a "square-dressed socket-stone of grey whin". The edge round the socket has been chipped and rounded and a shallow channel formed at one corner, so that it may have been used as a trough. 

It stands against a wall and is thought to date back to the medieval/dark ages, at which point it would have held a large stone cross. It is believed the cross was taken and used when building nearby Cathlaw House. The cross formerly stood by the roadside, but the socket stone has been moved into its present position in the adjoining field, 

Quite what a very large stone cross was doing out here by the side of the road is unknown. It sat near a well to the immediate north, and close to a ruined Meeting Hall to the east, presumably for a non-conformist religious group in the 17th/18th Century. The location of the cross is shown on the map below, from the mid 19th Century. There's a picture of the cross base in the gallery.

There is a waypoint added to the cache page for Parking, and for the Old Cross base itself. There is a Bookmark List for this series of caches in The Bathgate Hills, here.

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Unatvat

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)