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The Grange by Robin and June

Location: N 51° 07.316 W 001° 11.958 Difficulty: 1 Terrain: 1

You should certainly not find "The Grange" geocache difficult to find, but making sure that others do not observe you finding it, or returning it. The cache is now in a different spot, under ivy, and near old iron work :-)

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 :-)



You will find more Lovelock caches on www.gpss.co.uk/geocache If you wish to contact Robin and want a reply, please email him direct on gpss@compuserve.com If you do this through a geocaching web site, please make sure you include your email address. Robin regrets that he may not reply to those who seek to hide who they are. Please include at least your name and email address.