This is my second cache and my second multi-cache church micro. Some might call it an addiction...
To find the cache, you’ll need to solve the clues to find the coordinates which will lead you to its location. It’s not in the church grounds, but a short walk away.
The cache is a small clip-lock container large enough for small TBs and swaps. Please replace as found! BYOP 😄
All Saints, Ashwellthorpe
By the gate is the grave of the great church photographer Richard Tilbrook, whose books of Norfolk and Suffolk Churches Large and Small are still deservedly the standard texts for those wanting to see images of the buildings. Bequest and burial evidence suggests that the whole church was constructed within forty years or so, starting in the later decades of the 14th century. The porch is high and open, with a parvise room above. The door handle is the original one from the start of the fifteenth century - if you look, you can see that the spindle is cast as a tiny dragon, grasping the handle in its mouth.
The church has recently undergone an excellent restoration, and you enter a white-walled barn of a building, full of light from the clear glass of the windows, with modern chairs on beautiful brick floors. It is absolutely lovely, but if it was not for one particular feature, this church would be of little excitement to the historian. However, there is a north chapel to the chancel where members of the Thorp, or Thorpe, family are buried, and between the two lies Norfolk's most splendid alabaster memorial. It depicts Sir Edmund and Lady Jaon Thorp, both wearing the rare collar of SS, angels bearing Lady Joan's pillow to heaven, and two quizzical little dogs beneath their feet.
The font has been repainted with heraldic shields. Pevsner dates it from the Restoration in 1660, and so no doubt it replaced a medieval font destroyed by the puritans. The chancel is cleared of all furnishings, and the sanctuary is simple, practical and beautiful.
The remains of the screen are still in place, the dado on each side consisting of two wide panels and a narrow one. behind them, stalls which may retain their medieval popyheads are all that remain of the Victorian furnishings.
Solving the clues
The cache is located at N52 ABC.DE E001 FG.HJK
Anna Maria died March 17 18KA
William died September 3 19BC
William Woodhouse died aged 7D
E = Number of times the letter A appears in William Woodhouse’s wife’s first name
F = (E-D)
J = Number of windows with glass in on the south facing facade of the church (the view shown in the photo here 😉)
G = number of years between the ages of Anna Maria and William when they died, divided by K, then minus A
H = number of metal spikes on the left gate at the entrance to the churchyard, minus K, minus F
Full coordinates should add up to 29
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