Welcome to St Mary’s at Applethwaite and the second geocache to be placed at this church. Airhorns put a cache here in 2018 and archived it in 2020. I've resurrected the church micro number and reinstated the cache.
Before the railways arrived, the scattered rural township of Applethwaite was served by the old parish church of St Martin's in Bowness as well as Jesus church in Troutbeck. The railway arrived in 1846, the village was renamed Windermere and the Victorian building spree caused an increase in parishioners. A new church was needed.
A chapel was built in 1848 to accommodate 200 people but it was soon too small. Many additions and alterations since then result in the church you find here today. In 1988 the church was the subject of an arson attack which entirely destroyed the roof and caused extensive damage to the interior. Somehow the money was raised to replace the roof with the magnificent wooden roof you can see today. It is worth making the effort to see the roof but unfortunately, the attack left the church wary of leaving the doors open. To admire the roof, you have to visit between 11 and 12 on a Wednesday morning or attend a service, although summer sometimes sees more opening times.
The cache coordinates will have brought you to the lych-gate where you will find a stone dedicated to one of the previous vicars of St Mary who became Dean of Carlisle. Note the dates he served St Mary’s: - ABCD – ABEF
To find the cache go to N54 22(B-A)(E+A)(Cx2) W2 54.E(C+A)(E-A))
Enter the calculated coordinates as a new waypoint in your device and navigate to it. Its not far away.
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