Also, good luck with your new job
August 1 of 3
by Kalozois » Tue Nov 06, 2007 11:01 pm
wow - i had a totally different place which met the first two clues..
Did SW definately say that you were looking in the right place?
They have maybe been back since and made sure its there, i think you should try again!
Did SW definately say that you were looking in the right place?
They have maybe been back since and made sure its there, i think you should try again!
-
Kalozois - Isis 5%
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- Joined: Sun Nov 04, 2007 12:48 pm
Hello
by Lozza » Mon Nov 19, 2007 3:06 pm
Hi everyone,
I've been watching this site for a while now waiting for my account to be activated.
By per chance I was forced down to the IOW last weekend (very unwillingly
). Managed to get my dad to take me to Yarmoth to have a look for this elusive Isis and we spent over an hour on our knees crawling through the bushes (with blackberry bush mixed in), digging and climbing (my dad got stuck up a tree) then he managed to disturb a hornets nest so had to leg it out of there pretty quick 
- nada!
It looks like the area is known to the homeless or just vagrant youths as there is evidence of people living in the bushes and also the Council has been tipping their grass cuttings under the bush! Hope it's not under there!
Brian - I can sympathise. When you've been assured that it's still there and you've looked so hard, it's pretty defeating to not find it.
I appeal to SW to go out there, check if the Isis is still there and to amend the clue to the exact amount of steps after the AND. Never has a clue been so vague.
I've been watching this site for a while now waiting for my account to be activated.
By per chance I was forced down to the IOW last weekend (very unwillingly
). Managed to get my dad to take me to Yarmoth to have a look for this elusive Isis and we spent over an hour on our knees crawling through the bushes (with blackberry bush mixed in), digging and climbing (my dad got stuck up a tree) then he managed to disturb a hornets nest so had to leg it out of there pretty quick - nada!
It looks like the area is known to the homeless or just vagrant youths as there is evidence of people living in the bushes and also the Council has been tipping their grass cuttings under the bush! Hope it's not under there!
Brian - I can sympathise. When you've been assured that it's still there and you've looked so hard, it's pretty defeating to not find it.
I appeal to SW to go out there, check if the Isis is still there and to amend the clue to the exact amount of steps after the AND. Never has a clue been so vague.
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Lozza - Newbie
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Re: Hello
by thelightjockey » Mon Nov 19, 2007 6:24 pm
Lozza wrote:Never has a clue been so vague.
don't start the vague clue thing... many folks could claim that. Clarification on this search would be nice for those folks in the south though.
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thelightjockey - Isis 5%
- Posts: 345
- Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 9:03 pm
- Location: darkest ayrshire
by Skizz » Wed Nov 21, 2007 2:33 pm
I'm intrigued as to why Yarmouth is the likely starting place for this Isis.
I'd be more tempted to start in Ryde. The '497' is probably a reference to BS497 (British Standard) which refers to certain types of manhole cover so it seems possible that many manhole covers feature the number. 'Greenheart pile's might refer to the piles used in the construction of piers, the main pier on the IOW is in Ryde. I wonder if there's any public benches made from bits of the old pier? Although I'm close to Ryde (on the main land) it's not really convenient to get there
.
Just a thought.
Skizz
I'd be more tempted to start in Ryde. The '497' is probably a reference to BS497 (British Standard) which refers to certain types of manhole cover so it seems possible that many manhole covers feature the number. 'Greenheart pile's might refer to the piles used in the construction of piers, the main pier on the IOW is in Ryde. I wonder if there's any public benches made from bits of the old pier? Although I'm close to Ryde (on the main land) it's not really convenient to get there
.
Just a thought.
Skizz
- Skizz
- Poster
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- Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:55 am
- Location: Somewhere in the vicinity of Southampton
by Skizz » Wed Nov 21, 2007 4:53 pm
It just seemed to me that a lot of people have searched the area and not found anything, which made me wonder if the location was correct. A manhole cover and a clock aren't exactly rare. There was mention of stone in relation to the seat which doesn't tie in with the clue as it mentions 'greenheart' which is a type of wood. When searching the web for 'greenheart piles' it made references to beach works and pier construction, which lead me to think of Ryde - which had its orginal wooden piles replaced.
Skizz
Skizz
- Skizz
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- Joined: Wed Nov 07, 2007 11:55 am
- Location: Somewhere in the vicinity of Southampton
by Shiny » Wed Nov 21, 2007 6:18 pm
If I understand it correctly:
- the seat's made of Greenheart wood, which was the original material of the bridge
- the drain hole cover found has the 497 on it
- it also has Stanton AND Stanley on it
- Big Brian's been told he's been looking in the right area
- the seat's made of Greenheart wood, which was the original material of the bridge
- the drain hole cover found has the 497 on it
- it also has Stanton AND Stanley on it
- Big Brian's been told he's been looking in the right area
- Shiny
- Isis 5%
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- Location: Treasure hunting
by anash27 » Mon Dec 17, 2007 11:10 am
Hi guys and girls!
At long last we have managed to check this Isis/coin. It had indeed gone missing so we have placed a new coin in the exact same place as the first and all is good again.
Enjoy!
Ade
At long last we have managed to check this Isis/coin. It had indeed gone missing so we have placed a new coin in the exact same place as the first and all is good again.
Enjoy!
Ade
- anash27
- Need A Social Life
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- Location: Cornwall
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Lodgecrest - Isis Tessarisis 5%
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- Location: A Pyramid somewhere in Egypt
by dwmmkopf » Tue Dec 25, 2007 1:32 pm
Hi all,
As the site now shows this isis has been found -- by us. We thought we'd post a brief account, including our mild false trails. We are the dwmmkoepfe, and we number four: the Brothers (whom we may call Big and Little Brother), the Stranger, and myself, your present chronicler.
I was introduced to the Isis Hunt on the evening of last Friday (21 December) by LB. We looked at the outstanding challenges and this one seemed to offer the most purchase. A google search (for "wight greenheart") led us to this page about Yarmouth Pier, IOW, the only wooden pier left in Britain -- and which has greenheart piles. That seemed extremely promising. Additionally it had 552 wooden planks; if they were numbered, the magic number 497 could possibly be a number in that range, and "cross over AND" could refer to part of one of the names on the planking.
Noting the reference to a clock tower we searched next for churches in Yarmouth and found a page about St James' Church, with pictures of the church and its prominent clock. The page notes its location, which helped us to identify the square clock tower on aerial photos of the area. You can see it, as well as part of the pier, on this aerial photograph. The tower is on the east side of St James' Street, just south of the junction with Bridge Road. It seemed that it would definitely be visible from the pier and was more or less in line with it.
By this point LB and I were practically ready for a trip to the IOW. We didn't have all the answers -- and the word "seat" remained unexplained -- but we thought we had plenty enough to be going on with, and that any more information would only be discovered on site. It seemed so easy, though, that we wondered why this, of all free isis clues, had gone unclaimed since August. So we did some more searching, and found this forum.
At this point we found three things: first, that it was not as easy as we'd thought to make the connection with Yarmouth, most people having guessed Ryde or elsewhere; second, however, that Big Brian had made several attempts having indeed identified Yarmouth, but had an additional idea about a seat made from a part of a bridge; and thirdly that the token had recently disappeared and been replaced only a few days ago.
What were we to do? If Brian's information was right, should we abandon the search because we were stealing "his" clue? On the other hand, what about our own research? Even if Brian were right, our search was very close, and there seemed every chance we would have found the seat once we'd got to Yarmouth and exhausted the possibilities of the pier. Besides, we weren't entirely convinced of his lead: the link with the pier seemed unassailable. Though we wondered whether when Brian said "bridge" he meant "pier", since we knew the pier underwent restoration in the early 90s.
As you've guessed we decided to go. With or without Brian's posts, we felt we had enough to justify the trip. Besides, SW put the clue there for all comers to try, and Brian chose to put his information in the public domain; having read it we couldn't now "unread" it.
Getting there would have been another challenge: it's a fair journey from Cambridge, and time was short before I had to be away for Christmas. Happily Big Brother stepped in at this point and offered to drive -- something he used to do for a living. At the same time the Stranger, a military man, was recruited to help with the search. His soldierly persistence was to prove vital later. We set off at 4.30am on Sunday in order to catch the 7.45 ferry from Lymington and make the most of the available light; we knew we wouldn't have a chance once it got dark.
After some exhilarating driving we made the ferry with less than a minute to spare. The sun rose as we crossed, fog lay in thick folds on the bay, and there was ice underfoot. We made for the pier, the last wooden pier in Britain, with piles of greenheart.
It was a disappointment. There were several seats along its length, but none that seemed particularly distinctive. The planks weren't numbered, and 497 didn't seem to mean anything. We did have a moment of excitement when we calculated which plank would be 497th if you started from the seaward end: the benefactor named in capitals just a few planks further on was ANDY ANDREWS! Plenty of ANDs to cross over there. So we did some poking about, but there weren't too many hiding places. Then we speculatively walked towards the church from the pier, and found a manhole cover marked "BS497". But we weren't 80 paces from anything, and there was no AND in sight.
The tower has clock faces on the north and west aspects. Having had no luck on the north, it seemed sensible to investigate the west, particularly since -- as you can see from the aerial picture linked above -- there is a park there; plenty of plausible hiding places, and besides, Brian seemed sure the coin was in a tree. The aerial picture shows that there are several features in the north-west corner of the park which might furnish a starting point, or failing that the bridge might oblige. As soon as we got to the corner of the park we knew we had found the right seat. Clearly we shouldn't have doubted Brian, and just as he had said, the wooden seat bore a label proclaiming it a block out of the old greenheart pile -- not of the pier, but -- of the bridge, before it was replaced by the present bridge in 1999. The coincidence -- we were led to consider Yarmouth by the greenheart piles of the pier, which turn out to be unconnected to the seat -- remains curious.
Little remains to tell. The clock tower was plainly visible, and eighty paces or so towards it led us to another drain cover, with the British Standard number 497 in its centre. Taking a line from this through the word "AND" in the manufacturer's name on the perimeter led us, as Brian has already told, through a gap in a hedge towards a thin line of trees. There were perhaps half a dozen that were remotely plausible candidates for being in the right place.
We were not, I fear, very systematic. We combed them, we climbed them, we scraped earth out of their hollows, we lifted each other up to look in hollows higher up. It was still very cold, and we felt very dedicated to be there at all. Still, after the first hour or so we were were re-examining the same areas in an attempt to look busy to each other, and beginning to feel a bit foolish. We knocked off for some tea. After the break the Brothers set about examining some unpromising high-up feature, while I looked at a hollow that I realised was deeper than I'd noticed before and I could stick my arm in up to the elbow and feel around in. It would have made an excellent hiding place, but alas, there was nothing in it. Meantime the Stranger was inspecting a different tree hollow: one that I had already tried twice, dug plenty of earth out of and poked, I thought, exhaustively. But not so! For with a cry of triumph ("Hey guys -- I'm not joking this time") the Stranger announced that he had found the coin.
Our quest for a "free" isis was therefore successful, though it had cost us, in petrol, ferry tickets and provisions so close to the retail price as makes no odds. Our romantic treasure hunt was far more enjoyable, though, and as Big Brother says, we got a free day trip to the IOW into the bargain. Merry Christmas, all!
As the site now shows this isis has been found -- by us. We thought we'd post a brief account, including our mild false trails. We are the dwmmkoepfe, and we number four: the Brothers (whom we may call Big and Little Brother), the Stranger, and myself, your present chronicler.
I was introduced to the Isis Hunt on the evening of last Friday (21 December) by LB. We looked at the outstanding challenges and this one seemed to offer the most purchase. A google search (for "wight greenheart") led us to this page about Yarmouth Pier, IOW, the only wooden pier left in Britain -- and which has greenheart piles. That seemed extremely promising. Additionally it had 552 wooden planks; if they were numbered, the magic number 497 could possibly be a number in that range, and "cross over AND" could refer to part of one of the names on the planking.
Noting the reference to a clock tower we searched next for churches in Yarmouth and found a page about St James' Church, with pictures of the church and its prominent clock. The page notes its location, which helped us to identify the square clock tower on aerial photos of the area. You can see it, as well as part of the pier, on this aerial photograph. The tower is on the east side of St James' Street, just south of the junction with Bridge Road. It seemed that it would definitely be visible from the pier and was more or less in line with it.
By this point LB and I were practically ready for a trip to the IOW. We didn't have all the answers -- and the word "seat" remained unexplained -- but we thought we had plenty enough to be going on with, and that any more information would only be discovered on site. It seemed so easy, though, that we wondered why this, of all free isis clues, had gone unclaimed since August. So we did some more searching, and found this forum.
At this point we found three things: first, that it was not as easy as we'd thought to make the connection with Yarmouth, most people having guessed Ryde or elsewhere; second, however, that Big Brian had made several attempts having indeed identified Yarmouth, but had an additional idea about a seat made from a part of a bridge; and thirdly that the token had recently disappeared and been replaced only a few days ago.
What were we to do? If Brian's information was right, should we abandon the search because we were stealing "his" clue? On the other hand, what about our own research? Even if Brian were right, our search was very close, and there seemed every chance we would have found the seat once we'd got to Yarmouth and exhausted the possibilities of the pier. Besides, we weren't entirely convinced of his lead: the link with the pier seemed unassailable. Though we wondered whether when Brian said "bridge" he meant "pier", since we knew the pier underwent restoration in the early 90s.
As you've guessed we decided to go. With or without Brian's posts, we felt we had enough to justify the trip. Besides, SW put the clue there for all comers to try, and Brian chose to put his information in the public domain; having read it we couldn't now "unread" it.
Getting there would have been another challenge: it's a fair journey from Cambridge, and time was short before I had to be away for Christmas. Happily Big Brother stepped in at this point and offered to drive -- something he used to do for a living. At the same time the Stranger, a military man, was recruited to help with the search. His soldierly persistence was to prove vital later. We set off at 4.30am on Sunday in order to catch the 7.45 ferry from Lymington and make the most of the available light; we knew we wouldn't have a chance once it got dark.
After some exhilarating driving we made the ferry with less than a minute to spare. The sun rose as we crossed, fog lay in thick folds on the bay, and there was ice underfoot. We made for the pier, the last wooden pier in Britain, with piles of greenheart.
It was a disappointment. There were several seats along its length, but none that seemed particularly distinctive. The planks weren't numbered, and 497 didn't seem to mean anything. We did have a moment of excitement when we calculated which plank would be 497th if you started from the seaward end: the benefactor named in capitals just a few planks further on was ANDY ANDREWS! Plenty of ANDs to cross over there. So we did some poking about, but there weren't too many hiding places. Then we speculatively walked towards the church from the pier, and found a manhole cover marked "BS497". But we weren't 80 paces from anything, and there was no AND in sight.
The tower has clock faces on the north and west aspects. Having had no luck on the north, it seemed sensible to investigate the west, particularly since -- as you can see from the aerial picture linked above -- there is a park there; plenty of plausible hiding places, and besides, Brian seemed sure the coin was in a tree. The aerial picture shows that there are several features in the north-west corner of the park which might furnish a starting point, or failing that the bridge might oblige. As soon as we got to the corner of the park we knew we had found the right seat. Clearly we shouldn't have doubted Brian, and just as he had said, the wooden seat bore a label proclaiming it a block out of the old greenheart pile -- not of the pier, but -- of the bridge, before it was replaced by the present bridge in 1999. The coincidence -- we were led to consider Yarmouth by the greenheart piles of the pier, which turn out to be unconnected to the seat -- remains curious.
Little remains to tell. The clock tower was plainly visible, and eighty paces or so towards it led us to another drain cover, with the British Standard number 497 in its centre. Taking a line from this through the word "AND" in the manufacturer's name on the perimeter led us, as Brian has already told, through a gap in a hedge towards a thin line of trees. There were perhaps half a dozen that were remotely plausible candidates for being in the right place.
We were not, I fear, very systematic. We combed them, we climbed them, we scraped earth out of their hollows, we lifted each other up to look in hollows higher up. It was still very cold, and we felt very dedicated to be there at all. Still, after the first hour or so we were were re-examining the same areas in an attempt to look busy to each other, and beginning to feel a bit foolish. We knocked off for some tea. After the break the Brothers set about examining some unpromising high-up feature, while I looked at a hollow that I realised was deeper than I'd noticed before and I could stick my arm in up to the elbow and feel around in. It would have made an excellent hiding place, but alas, there was nothing in it. Meantime the Stranger was inspecting a different tree hollow: one that I had already tried twice, dug plenty of earth out of and poked, I thought, exhaustively. But not so! For with a cry of triumph ("Hey guys -- I'm not joking this time") the Stranger announced that he had found the coin.
Our quest for a "free" isis was therefore successful, though it had cost us, in petrol, ferry tickets and provisions so close to the retail price as makes no odds. Our romantic treasure hunt was far more enjoyable, though, and as Big Brother says, we got a free day trip to the IOW into the bargain. Merry Christmas, all!
- dwmmkopf
- Isis 5%
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- Joined: Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:21 pm
- Location: Cambridge
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