St Paul’s Cathedral Cross City of London, England, United Kingdom
By Geocaching Australia on 01-May-23. Waypoint TP13556

Cache Details

Difficulty:
Terrain:
Type:	TrigPoint
Container:	Other
Coordinates:	N51° 30.827' W0° 5.895' (WGS 84)
	30U 701338E 5710954N (UTM)
Elevation:	35 m

Map

Whodunit Mascot

Description

This is a TrigPoint Cache. There are no physical geocache containers with logbooks or swap items relating to this cache here. To log a find on the Geocaching Australia website, you will need to include a picture of the St Paul’s Cathedral Cross along with your GPS receiver or your geocaching name on something or yourself.

St Paul’s Cathedral Cross
Trig code: TQ47I199

St Paul’s Cathedral began its history way back in 604 with an initial build and consecration. Various iterations followed. The Cathedral was officially declared complete in 1711. In 1848 a scaffold and observatory were raised round the cross, and in three months some four thousand observations were made for a new trigonometrical survey of London and beyond. A Principal Triangulation of Britain was completed in 1853. Without the observatory the cross was an intersection trig station. Intersection is a process where rays are observed to the station from many outside points and the coordinates derived from the resulting intersection of those rays.

Top of dome sketch, Christopher Wren - late 1600s

A sketch “of” surveyors, atop the cross, 1848

The scaffolding and observatory, 1848

Front view of trig (cross), April 2023

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Trig points are generally located at the top of hills or points of prominence in the landscape. Many provide unique views and challenges, with some being difficult to get to.

These points were regarded as valuable to surveyors, providing reference points for measuring distance and direction, and assisting in the creation of maps.

You are encouraged to leave a description of your journey in your log to help others in finding the trig point.

Please respect local laws and regulations when searching for trig points. If you believe that a trig point is located on private property or in a dangerous location, you may archive the cache, by clicking on Log this Cache and place an "Archived" log on the Geocaching Australia website.

If you feel that you can add to the description of this trig point or adjust the difficulty / terrain ratings, please feel free to edit this cache and amend the information suitably. Vandalism of the cache description or other information will result in your account being terminated.

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Access: Street view.

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References and sketches:

https://ordnancesurvey.co.uk
https://stpauls.co.uk
https://british-history.ac.uk
https://trigpointing.uk
https://fireoflondon.org.uk

Logs

07-Jun-24

The Hancock Clan

Never knew St Pauls Cathedral was used as a trig! Also didn't expect to find a GCA in London but had to check! TFTTP!
Cheers,
The Hancock Clan

01-May-23

wayn0

A four hour layover at London Gatwick airport had me catching up on geocaching logs and finally publishing this cache. After learning about the surveying significance of the St Paul’s Cathedral Cross I revisited this location last week. I was staying on Fleet Street for a couple of days so it was only a few minutes walk away. I try to avoid London but I had some business to take care of and some spare time so I continued working on my London to-do list. My nerd list included successfully visiting Earthcaches, an interesting Adventure Lab, a visit to a Greenwich Meridian marker, a visit to London’s point zero marker, checking out broad arrow benchmarks and more. My non-nerd I-want-to-experience list included dinner at a Gordon Ramsey restaurant and a West End show. The restaurant was a great experience, flawless, but the West End show was even better! I underestimated how entertaining these shows can be! It was “simply the best!”. Unforgettable. I was surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did! Due to my personality traits I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it. I just wanted to experience it. An unexpected and thoroughly entertaining evening and another reminder to keep my mind open to new things to add to my story. What’s the point of every chapter being the same? Ten years of repeating each year is not ten years of experiences. It’s one year of experiences repeated ten times. Postpone nothing. Memento Mori.

Reading about this trig I was fascinated about the early surveying of this region. There are lots of trig points in London but this one is one of the more grand locations. There’s lots to see and do here including having ales in pubs that have been operational since the 1500s. Thanks for the cache Smile