The Grange

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Hidden On: 04 Nov 2001
Waypoint (Landmark): N000CF
Open Cache:  Personal use only
Cache type:  Normal
Cache size:   Normal

Difficulty:  (easy)
Terrain:  (easy)

Misc:

Comments:

During the medieval period the land was owned by Hythe Abbey, Winchester, but the land was sold after The Reformation, and the first house built in 1662 by the lawyer Robert Henley. The Drummond family had it next, and from 1795 to 1800 it was leased to George, The Prince of Wales.

In 1809 Henry Drummond commissioned a new house to be designed by William Wilkins. It is the remains of this house, "Northington Grange", that you now see. It was one of the earliest Greek Revival houses in Europe. In 1975 what remained of the house was taken over by the Department of the Environment.

Restoration seems to be progressing slowly :-)

This is a lovely part of Hampshire, where watercress is grown and where the "Watercress Line" runs old steam trains between New Alresford and Alton. If dad is the only enthusiast Geocacher in the family, maybe the visit can be combined with a trip on a steam train and/or browsing around the shops of New Alresford, the quaint old market town. For more details see
www.watercressline.co.uk

The original cache was planted in October 2001 and the whole area was in the process of being given a major "facelift", including the buildings and surrounding gardens. It seems this work is still in progress, many years later :-)

Our first geocache outin, very happy.
Found it fairly quickly, using a combination of google maps mobile and a HTC hero phone with built in GPS.

Found in the dark with Sandvika after the Gps sent me to the wrong place I just used my caching instict so thanks for replacing it. TFTC

Caching today with Heffalump007. A most strange day of caching, we finally got here as it was getting dark, the place was closed but the grounds were not locked up.

The cache had us fooled and in orbit around what seemed to be a rabbit hole for a while, especially as we have become accustomed to Robin's caches being large, or huge.

So, it was a welcome relief when Heffalump007 found the cache in a place we had not really looked in properly before because we were expecting something larger! Perhaps our failure in Odiham Castle was for similar reasons and we'd have found the cache despite not having the proper coordinates if we'd had a smaller container in mind!

I guess since the cache and location we found on Navicache is different to the original cache and location that was also posted on GC.com and found by Richard & Beth, we can claim this as a "first to find" however it can only relate to it's new incarnation, not another ancient discovery!

Thanks for the cache, Roderick. NC #29, Total #796
[Modified 2009-03-21 20:23:13]

June and Robin planted the replacement cache today, in a much better spot, but still near the building.

Thanks also for the 'phone call. Yes, you were looking in the right spot. I'll retire it until June and I plant another, maybe in a better spot not far away.

Went for an off chance but allas to no avail but thank you very much for taking me there it was nice to walk round the area.

Hi,

I went to the site to try and find the cache but to no avail. There were not many poeple about apart from the builders and one teacher from Fleet who seemed to be looking and who was quite well informed on the history of The Grange. It is a lovely setting though.

Can someone please confirm if this cache is still there or whether it hs been removed.

Thanks.