NC5 The Nelson Touch Multi-Cache

That which is attached to my Log Book will help you to find my hiding place. Note well where the thin cord leads for it will lead you to where I rest.

The Nelson Touch: an attribute of a charismatic leader which allows them to engender confidence and positive morale in those being led. As Nelson himself wrote to Lady Hamilton of his joining the fleet off Cadiz in 1805 "it was like an Electric shock, some shed tears all approved, it was new, it was singular, it was simple and from admirals down it was repeated ... you are My Lord surrounded by friends who you inspire with confidence". Others with the Nelson touch would include Admiral Charles Napier (Black Charlie) famous for his part in the raid on Washington in 1814 and and the Baltic campaign of 1854 , Ernest Shackleton and Lady Thatcher.

Horatio Nelson's first view of Great Yarmouth was as a midshipman from the ketch Carcass on its return from Svalbard in September 1773. He returned as the Captain of the 28 gun frigate Albemale in the autumn and winter of 1781 to 1782 on convoy escort duty in the North Sea. His most famous visit however was his triumphant return as the victor of the Nile in 1800 when thousands gathered to greet him in Church Plain. Georgian Yarmouth was very different from today's town. The first developments outside the town walls was the Naval Hospital & racecourse on the South Denes and a bathhouse (on the site of The Flamingo) & boarding houses for society visitors to the north. Before the arrival of the railways Great Yarmouth was a resort for the better sort of person who came by sea from London.

There is ample pay & display parking close to the market place although parking by the Tide & Time museum (2005 Gulbenkian prize short list) is free, a nice cafe and is well placed to complete your journey. The instructions below assume that you have parked by the Tide & Time museum.

Walk north up Blackfriars Road, then east along St Peters Road to Marine Parade, by the Barking Smack and the Marine. Take a horse drawn landau (or No. 3 bus/road train/open top bus) south to the Nelson Monument (No 3 and road train only go as far as the Pleasure Beach at the end of South Beach Parade - end of the dual carriage way). As you are conveyed southward ponder this problem. Jack Tar and Able Seaman spent the evening playing Uckers in the Barking Smack. As the evening wore on the rest of the crew left apart from their mate Lot. Jack (red) had three pieces on the board and Able (blue) two. Abandoning the rules of blobis, chalenges and cockie dice they chose to decide who would win by rolling the dice 48 times and then each take it in turns to get one piece home. The next morning neither knew who had won until Lot produced the back of a beer mat with a record of the 48 dice rolls, of which they used at least three dozen. However as Lot is a cryptographer he has replaced some of the numbers with letters but left you clues to decipher on your walk round Yarmouth. Although those who have gone before you may have made heavy weather, remember all you are doing is playing a simple board game, and counting the turns you used. Having enjoyed your walk around Yarmouth, sit down, take a tea break, enjoy a game of uckers and then go for the final cache.

All that Jack and Able dimly remember is that Jack went first and that they used the number of dice rolls to hide the cache on the way back to their ship.

F	H	9	9	D	G	B	H	F	F	D	H
F	H	E	5	H	F	D	A	B	F	F	5
I	A	A	B	F	A	H	B	C	C	E	G
A	F	5	F	B	9	5	9	A	D	H	G

Final cache at 52º 36.B1/B2' North, 001º 43.R1/R2/R3' East

1 - Nelson's Monument - the process to build a Norfolk memorial to Nelson started on 30 November 1805 but is was a further 12 years before building began and two more before it was opened. A commanding seamark, for its first century it stood surrounded by the open sward of Yarmouth racecourse. On the day of the Norfolk Naval Pillar's opening the building surveyor Thomas Sutton died of a heart attack after climbing the 217 steps to the viewing gallery. Designed by the same architect as Dublin's Nelson's Column of 1809-1965, it is 44 metres high and had it not been for the additional cost of the foundations it would only have been 3m shorter than the late comer in Trafalgar Square. It is worth noting that although the monument faces due west (270º) Britannia looks westnorthwest (292º 30') which is close to, but not the exact azimuth (300º 30') to Burnham Thorpe (NC11 The Nelson) as legend would have it. Conspiracy theorists may note that the figure of Britannia mingles the iconography of that personification of Britain (standing on a globe, Neptune's trident, centurion's helmet) with the Masonic grace Hope (no Grecian shield or lion, trident in left hand, right rather than left breast exposed, sprouting branch in right hand). However one only has to refer to the current 50p piece to see that we still do not get in right, unless of course ....

A = the number of scuttles between Vanguard and Abu Kir.

Walk east to the beach then north along the beach front, taking time to admire the wooden roller coaster which was built in Hamburg in 1929 and at one (terrestrial) mile long is the sixth longest wooden coaster in the world. The Georgian brick buildings set back from Marine Parade were built as the Royal Naval Hospital in 1809. The regency style building opposite the Winter Gardens is the Royal Assembly Rooms, formerly the officers mess for the Artillery Militia, but since 1919 the Masonic Temple and home of the mysterious Nelsonian marble brick (NC4 A Nelson)

2 - Jetty - 52º 36.(16xA)' North, 001º 44.3(AxA)' East - the jetty was originally built to allow boats from the ships at anchor in Yarmouth Roads easy access to the shore. Nelson landed here from the brig Kite in July 1801 on his return from Copenhagen and the Baltic. Turn with your back to the German Ocean and face west. The Barking Smack and Marine are the two oldest sea front buildings you see and are in their fourth century providing for the needs of mariners. It is worth your while noting the obelisk directly in line with the pier which is a memorial to the Far East POWs of WWII. Looking only between the windmill and the tower:

B = how many clock faces can you see from here?

Despite the waiting crowds, and the civic reception in the Market Place, Nelson headed north from here to the original Naval Hospital. Follow him northward along the promenade and then turn west along Sandown Road, passing the Youth Hostel on your way. When you enter the conservation area take the main path southward, noting the WWII strafing damage to the largest granite memorial as you pass.

3 - James Guthrie - 52º 36.6((9xA)+1)' North, 001º 43.7(2xBxBxB)' East - This area was formerly the Sailors' Burial Ground for the naval barracks and hospital which stood on the site now occupied by the supermarket:

C = the second part of the year in which the Royal Naval Gunner died.
D = the month in which he died.

Unfortunately most of the Napoleonic graves where not given stone markers and the area was reused for civil interments when absorbed into the St Nicholas churchyard in the 1830s. There are more recent Victorian naval graves in the cemetery extension and the graves of Thomas Sutton and David Bartleman (killed by the notorious English pirate Fall in 1781, when Nelson's frigate the Albemale was on patrol duty). St Nicholas is the largest parish church in Britain and in November 1800 Nelson attended a thanksgiving service here for his safe return to England.

4 - Nelson Hotel - 52º 36.6(C+(D/2)' North, 001º 43.5BA' East - you are standing in what was Brewers Plain with the former site of E Lacon & Co's Falcon Brewery to your west. Lacon was famous for its Yarmouth Pale Ale which was shipped as far as India and Sri Lanka, where Nelson may have tasted some on his two year voyage as a midshipman on HMS Seahorse. To your south is all that remains of Yarmouth's premier coaching inn, partially destroyed by German bombing in 1942. Mrs Suckling the landlady wanted to rename it the Nelson Arms in honour of his visit ,but Nelson thought this "absurd as I have but one"! In 1836 it returned to the name it has grappled with since 1691:

E = the month of Nelson's stay which is comemorated here.

5 - Row 74 - 52º 36.((Ax50)+2)' North, 001º 43.6(13xD)' East - for most of its 1000 year history Yarmouth had only 3 streets north/south and over 130 narrow east/west lanes called Rows. There were even special one wheeled carts to allow merchants to bring their goods through the Rows from the river quay. This row was rebuilt as an arcade in 1926 but the right hand shop was the mayor's residence and Nelson and the Hamiltons were entertained here by Mayor Samuel Baker:

F = number of hoops on the lefthand pediment.
G = number of loops on the righthand pediment.

Walk down the row until you reach Trafalgar House then turn north towards Hall Quay.

6 - The Nelson Room - 52º 36.B9D' North, 001º 43.DF0' East - the building in front of you is an impostor as it is really the Cromwell Temperance Hotel and in Nelson's time was a merchant's house (demonstrating the value of the Norfolk woollen trade which accounted for on seventh of England's total GDP in Tudor times. The Star Hotel stood on the south side of Ben Dowson's Row and closed in 1930 to make way for a telephone exchange.

H = the GPO built this building in 193H
I = the units numeral of the intervening row

Cross onto the quay side and make your way to the final cache. On your way you can admire the weather vane on the council offices and some of the finest merchant houses still standing in England including that now occupied by the Norfolk Nelson Museum at 26 South Quay. In the summer season there is often a historic vessel on the South Quay, often the steam drifter Lydia Eva but the Grand Turk, Bounty and Mayflower have all visited in recent years. Across the river, in what to 1974 was Suffolk, you can see Richards Shipyard in Southtown near where Nelson arrived on in 1800 from Cuxhaven and further south Gorleston where the fleet took on victuals and freshwater (see Admiral Duncan's Pump).