I bring you to Castle Upon Alun, a tranquil valley with no remaining castle, but it does have a ford, two sets of stepping stones, ceaseless birdsong, an old quarry, some impressive railway arches and this - a fairly historic clapper bridge.
The bridge is made up of all sorts of locally quarried lumps of stone, including what appear to be some lintels from a long forgotten house, maybe the castle? The bridge has small dropped piers on the upstream side which are a delightful place to sit and cool your feet in summer. The water is very clean here, as you can see it's very clear, and watercress grows naturally all along this stretch. My dad used to bring me here to the ford as a child, we would catch minnows and sticklebacks in a wine bottle with the punt knocked through, and watch for dragonflies, we once found a caddis fly larva case too.
This is a 4-part multi with waypoints to guide you to the final, and to keep just out of the proximity of the nearby Daffodil Wood cache (well worth a visit for nature lovers any time of year, but gorgeous in spring).
You are near water, take care with little cachers, and be very careful where you are stepping, especially in summer, parts of the bridge are narrower than others, quite overgrown, and it's very easy to mistake sprouting greenery for a solid surface.
Published Coords: A lone, blue capped wooden post near the parking space, with how many waymarker circles on it in total? This is A
WP1: How many neatly chiseled stone lintels are there at the posted coordinates making up a small part of the bridge surface. That's B. (ignore the first ones you come to, it's the next set you want, after the piers on the upstream side).
WP2: Carry on over, then up the natural steps to the stile, how many waymarker signs on both sides of both sides in total? That's C.
WP3: How many of those waymarkers are recessed into the posts? That's D.
You will find the cache at...
N51 27.(A+D-B)(B+D)(C-D) W 3 34.(C/B)(D/2)(D-B)
If you come back to the bridge once found, you can walk along the bank and come back to the parking via the giant stepping stones.
The Reference Waypoint is the ford and the other stepping stones, not part of the cache but worth a visit, and once through the ford you can go up the lane towards my CEO series, and a certain Puzzle Cache you might have solved.
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The Little Bridges series was started by Stanthews in 2009 to highlight small footbridges in remote parts of Wiltshire. Since then the series has been expanded by others all over the country and starting to spread fast. There is a stats listing, so you can see how many Little Bridges you have found, you can find it here:- www.littlebridgesseries.co.uk. https://www.littlebridgesseries.co.uk If you would like to add to the series, please contact us via the Little Bridges website with your caching name, name of your Little Bridge and the GC code and we will give you a number for your bridge. To qualify, the bridge must be a foot bridge too small for vehicles, please make sure your title exactly matches "Little Bridges # xxxx then the name" including spaces so it will get picked up and added to stats list.