The Grand Union Canal links Birmingham to London with a waterway
which is 145 miles long and contains 166 locks. This cache is one
of a series to be found along or close to theHertfordshire stretch
of the canal.
This cache is located along a section of the canal which used to
flow past the Ovaltine factory, which stood here for 90 years. In
1929, Ovaltine had bought Numbers Farm in Kings Langley and
Parsonage Farm in Bedmond Road, Abbots Langley. The 460 acres of
farmland was used for the Ovaltine Egg Farm and Dairy Farm, to
produce the ingredients for malt - eggs, milk and barley - which
are needed to manufacture Ovaltine. At the height of production,
the egg farm housed 50,000 chickens. The Jersey cows from the dairy
had won around 700 agricultural awards by the 1960s.
The Dairy Farm was built as a replica of a farm built for Marie
Antoinette by the French king Louis XVI and has now been converted
into a housing complex called Antoinette Court.
In 1926, the company formed a fleet of narrowboats, which
travelled up the canals to and from Birmingham to bring coal back
to the factory. There were seven pairs of Ovaltine narrowboats -
the lead boat would be motorised and the second boat, or
‘butty’, would be towed behind. Each pair of boats were
given names - the first pair being Albert and Georgette and the
last, which made their final journey in April 1959, were Mimas and
Enid. It took between 10 and 14 days for the boats to make their
journey and they would run in a continuous circuit.
Now, as in some many other places along the Grand Union Canal,
industry has made way for modern housing developments. You can
admire the new developments on the opposite bank as you look for
this cache. Because it is overlooked, please use extreme stealth
when hunting for it, and also, as with all the canal caches, take
special care at the waters edge and dont fall in! You are looking
for a teeny (2 x 2 x 1) tupperware style container.