This is a virtual cache so there is no container to find. Instead you need to complete the tasks listed below.
Fred the Flintknapper celebrates Brandon's long history of supplying superior quality flint and the men who worked the flint, known as Flintknappers.
Flint has been worked in Brandon since Neolithic times, but the most profitable time for it was in the Napoleonic wars. When Brandon began making gun flints there were already established gun flint suppliers in places like Lewisham and Salisbury. However, the superior quality black flint mined in the Brandon area soon showed its worth as it enabled our soldiers to fire many more rounds than our enemy before needing to reload. By 1800 Brandon was the sole supplier to the Board of Ordinance, who were responsible for supplying munitions to the British army and Navy and in 1813, at the height of the Napoleonic war, Brandon's flintknappers were supplying over one million musket flints a month.
A flintknappers day would typically start at about 07:00 and last from 10-13 hours, with three breaks for meals. Their apprenticeship would last 7 years and boys had been known to start it from as young as 11 years of age. The flintknappers would be expected to produce 2000 gun flints a day. The environment was not a healthy one, dust and damp conditions often led to early deaths from bronchitis, ilicosis or pneumonia. The last flinknapper known to work in Brandon was Fred Snare, who lived at 7, Church Road and worked here from 1917-1929.
There were three stages to flintknapping.
1. The Quarterer would use a three pound hammer to tap lightly at a flint nodule balanced against his left thigh. He sensed the flints weak spots and then used the hammer to crack the nodule into workable quarters.
2. The Flaker holds the quarter against his thigh and uses a pointed hammer of soft steel to flake "double-ridged backs" or "single backs."
3. The Knapper sat in front of an anvil set into a wooden block, or a tree stump, and trimmed the edges of the flint in an anti-clockwise direction, knapping the flakes into gun flints using a steel hammer 9 inches long and 1 inch wide.
Tasks.
Message or e-mail me the answers to the following questions before logging a find and attach to your log a photo of something associated with yourself, (you, caching name, personal item etc) with Fred.
1. What wood is Fred carved from?
2. How long did it take to carve the stump into Fred?
3. Photo attached to log of something associated with yourself, (you, caching name, personal item etc) with Fred. You do not have to show your face.
Once your answers are sent please go ahead and log a find with your attached photo. If there is a problem I will contact you.
Congratulations to Dartmoordeliverer and Pebbles&co on being FTF 😃
Virtual Rewards 5.0 - 2026-2027
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between February 3, 2026 and February 3, 2027. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 5.0 on the Geocaching Blog.