VS 1495 Hayes
About Village Sign Caches
This cache belongs to the Village Sign Series, a series of caches based on ornate signs that depict the heritage, history and culture of the villages that put them up (generally on the village green!).
The signs can be made of different materials from fibreglass to wood, from forged steel to stone. They can depict anything from local industry to historical events. The tradition probably started in Norfolk or Suffolk and has now spread across most of the country so we thought we would base a series on them!
More information and statistics can be found at the Village Signs Website
Hayes
The name Hayes is recorded from 1177 as hoese from the Anglo-Saxon meaning "a settlement in open land overgrown with shrubs and rough bushes". The village stood at the junction of Hayes Lane, leading north to Bromley, and what is now known as Pickhurst Lane, leading west to West Wickham. The village school was here, as is the parish church of St Mary the Virgin.
Both William Pitt the Elder, 1st Earl of Chatham (1708–1778), and William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806) lived at Hayes Place, which was demolished in 1933 and the site redeveloped. Hayes became significant a little over a century ago, when Hayes became a popular place in which to live because bankers, stockbrokers and those who were "something in the City" bought property in the area. Between 1801, when the population was just 382, and 1921, it had almost tripled to 1010.
Throughout the 20th century the Hayes village area continued to grow and thrive, with further commercial development on Station approach in response to the increased traffic through the railway terminus driving an incentive for growth. Much of the area to the west and north-west of the original village has been taken over by suburbia.
The Hayes Millennium Village Sign was unveiled by the Mayor of Bromley, Councillor John Holbrook, on 23rd March 2002. The features of the sign represent 12th Century Church of St Mary the Virgin, Hayes Place (home of William Pitt the Elder and the Younger and later Sir Everard Hambro), the Pitts themselves, and Invicta, the Kent County Emblem.
The Cache
The cache, a magnetically attached bison, is located a short walk from the sign due to proximity issues. To the SW of the sign, just in front of a pair of cottages, is a sign with a yellow background. On the sign are a 3 digit number ABC, a one digit number D and a letter which is the Gth letter of the alphabet. EF can be obtained by dividing the 3 digit number by the 1 digit number. The cache can be found at:
N51 22.(G-E) (A+F) B E0 0.G G (D+F)
As the sign seems to have gone missing I have added an image of it below:
***** Congratulations to Lucyflight on the FTF *****
If anybody would like to expand the Village Sign Series, please do. I would ask that you request a number for your cache first at www.villagesignseries.co.uk so we can keep track of the Village Sign numbers and names to avoid duplication.