The Mad Geocaching Pensioner - Then and Now.

If there has been one thing that geocaching has given me, not including the weight loss, it's the fact that I have been able to enjoy 3 hobbies all at the same time. Firstly caching, second photography and thirdly local history.

The new photo is at the start of the Nailsworth Cycle Track (using the old track) and  6 caches.

For eighteen months I produced a weekly article in our local paper, The Stroud News & Journal, called "Then & Now", which involved taking a very old photograph and going out and standing exactly where the original photographer stood and reproduce the same picture. I would then write an article on the history and any changes that had happened during that time. So lets look at a couple of the caching sites and how they have changed from times gone by.

Nothing Personal (GC333ZX) This was a puzzle cache that finally lead you to the top of the old part of  Stroud. A very busy muggled area that needed plenty of stealth. The original photograph was taken about 1900 and show Horns Road where there are mostly Victorian houses. They were built by George Holloway for the workers at his woollen mill nearby.

The laurel tree still stands on the left where the beautiful ladies in their long dresses stand, the perambulator would be a collectors piece today. Shockingly someone made the decision to pebble-dash the first set of terraced houses therefore ruining a classic Victorian frontage.

One thing is for certain, not only do the cars ruin a wonderful view but the horse manure in the middle of the road then was much better for the roses. Today and 100 years later it's snow in the middle of the road. As for the cache, it was in the owners front garden towards the end of the street and you had to grab it over the wall.

Strawberry Bank (GC1XW8M).  One of my favourite caches and a place where I was forced into a backward somersault over a style to avoid a very friendly couple of horse, nah I wasn't injured although the old lady walking her dog nearby looked a little concerned as I leapt back to my feet.

There had been a wartime story regarding a German Junkers 88 bomber that had crashed near the village of Oakridge. It just so happened that I was geocaching in the exact area where the crash had taken place 70 years ago. Strawberry Bank lies just south of the village and when the bomber was shot down by a spitfire and a hurricane, it was reported that it just scraped the bell tower of the nearby school.

The old picture shows aircrew climbing over the wreckage, three of the German crew members did survive but one didn't. Today, as can be seen in my up to date photo, there is no clue to what happened here during that terrible war, in fact this is one of the most tranquil spots I've ever visited. The whole area is now a nature reserve and a site of special scientific interest with unique flowers and butterflies, any thought of the past now faded into history. The cache was neatly hidden in a hole in a tree next to a pretty stream at the bottom of the bank.

The tranquil glade at the bottom of the bank where the cache was found.


Much more geocaching stories of "Then and Now" to come, but I must not bore you all with history in England.