Thames Path - Lower Basildon Water Meadow Traditional Cache
Professor Xavier: As the owner has not responded to my previous log requesting that they check this cache I am archiving it.
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Ed
Professor Xavier - Volunteer UK Reviewer
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Thames Path - Lower Basildon Water Meadow
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Situated in an area of 'outstanding natural beauty', Lower Basildon is a small hamlet midway between Pangbourne and Streatley-on-Thames on the eastern edge of the Berkshire downlands, where they meet the Thames Valley, overlooking the Chiltern Hills in Oxfordshire.
Parking is available in a car park at the bottom of a lane leading off the main A329 (N51.30.505, W001.07.230), between the petrol station and ‘The Crown’ public house.
At the end of the lane is St Bartholomew church. The walls of this ancient Thames-side church were built when men were still going to the Holy Land to fight for their faith in the Crusades. The nave, constructed in the severe Early English style, dates from about 1220 whilst the chancel is some 60 years later. Stones in the porch are from an early Norman archway, and before that a wooden Saxon church would have stood on this site. It is thought that Christianity may actually have arrived here with the Romans in the 4th century; their great Villa, discovered by Brunel's railway navvies, lies beneath the ground just a few hundred yards away.
For nearly eight centuries the parishioners of Basildon have worshipped in the present building which is surrounded by their memorials. Here you will find the names of Yonge, Fane, Sykes and Morrison families who each in turn since 1543 owned the Basildon estate; Lady Katherine Lydcott's name is on the tenor bell she gave in 1621; Jethro Tull; the father of the English agrarian revolution, was buried here in 1741. Most poignant is the statue beside the church path of two young sons drowned in the Thames in 1886.
The cache is approximately 0.37 miles from the car park. Follow the footpath sign to the left of the car park down the lane and then hop over the stile on the right, which leads to the river.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Guvf pbhyq fghzc lbh!
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