We found the item at the co-ords some time ago when we were setting a walk treasure hunt for a youth event and since taking up geocaching we thought it would be a good spot for a Virtual. The award of a Virtual Reward gives us the opportunity to set this one.
You are looking for a roughly rectangular block of limestone standing upright on the eastern verge of the road. The stone has some inscriptions carved into it.
The stone is a Listed Building, Grade II because of its date and is a rare example of street furniture known to be of the period.
The village is recorded in the Domesday Book, but in the 1930s a builder working on a property found a lovely mosaic suggesting that the Romans had some presence here. At the time of our stone the area was a chapelry under the parish church of Northallerton. When it was inscribed the stone did not mark a parish, but more likely, a township. The, perhaps, unusual word in the inscription is believed to relate to the fact that, at the time, the area was part of the ecclesiastical “Peculiar of Allerton”, being held by the Bishop of Durham, with the rights of the Diocese of York being limited.
To claim the cache you need to carefully note the inscription carved on the side facing the road and what is carved on the top then send us an e-mail or message via geocaching with all of that information. You need to be precise with the main inscription but we will accept either a description of the top carving or what it represents, if you know what it is.
If you want to post a photo with your log please avoid showing any of the inscriptions on it. Any potentially “spoiler” photos will have to be deleted.
The cache can be done as a drive or ride by but the road is very narrow and has some traffic so please take great care and avoid blocking the road for any length of time.
There is a slightly wider verge very near where a car can be partly pulled off the road.
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
Well done to China Doll 47 as first to find