A potted history of the series
News, updates and significant dates
2023
November 2023
A new county - Northumberland with cache #1499 at Longframlington Memorial Hall by Lacy Vicki
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June 2023
A new county - Conway in North Wales with a cache published at Betws-y-coed #1336.
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May 2023
As part of the cow project the Village Hall Series have commissioned a Village Hall Cow version in red and yellow. This will be available via various promotions and auctions.
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February 2023
On the 10th anniversary of the series there have been 1432 different caches published, 15441 different cachers have found a cache in the series, 92081 different found logs have been posted.
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The 10th anniversary Geocoin was released celebrating the first cache placed 18th February 2013. Available in 4 finishes Silver, Black, Copper and Brass
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January 2023
3 new counties added to the series - Neath Port Talbot and Powys in Wales and Clackmannshire in Scotland
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2022
December 2022
At the end of December the series has 1235 active caches, 140 archived caches and 32 caches waiting for publication. 15,112 cachers have posted 89,143 found logs.
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Caerphilly, South wales became the 67th county in the series with a cache at Plasmawr Highfields community centre in Blackwood.
November 2022
East Lothian became the 65th county in the series with 3 caches published on 8th November for Pubpool and 2 days later the series added the 66th county with a cache in Vale of Glamorgan by Crippsy99.
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kaarthuul became the first cacher to reach 1000 village hall series finds and earn a level 9 (Glass) badge.
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October 2022
Event statistics added to the website for event attendees and hosts.
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The first Adventure Lab series based on Village halls was published, visiting 5 hall in Berkshire.
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Statistics for first in county, region, country added to the website.
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August 2022
The village halls podcast featured an interview with GeoJaxx about Geocaching and the Village Hall Series. follow the link below to Season 2, Episode 15
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May 2022
With the publication of caches 1275 Zeal Monachorum and 1276 - Xavier Parish Hall there are now caches in the series for every letter of the alphabet.
March 2022
The first virtual cache for the series was published at Lanhydrock. GC9P4TW - Village Hall Series 1240
Kaarrthuul was the first cacher to reach 900 finds
January 2022
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Village Hall Week took place 24th - 30th January and after lockdown prevented caching in the previous year we celebrated with profile badges again for - finding a cache, attending an event, placing a cache and taking a selfie at a village hall.
36 events were hosted with 424 cachers attending at least one event with a total of 550 event logs in total.
61 new caches were placed during the week and 1082 logs were made on 416 individual caches by 616 different cachers.
After the popularity of the lockdown selfie challenge it was continued this year and 158 selfies were posted to social media.
The series is now in 61 counties and saw a growth of the series in Scotland and Wales during village Hall week.
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The series was included in the January version of the Podcast - Podcacher. It features details about the series and Village hall Week. The 35 minute show about geocaching has questions answered by GeoJaxx at 4.30 minutes and 24 minutes.
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2021
December 2021
The year finished with 1082 active caches, 90 archived caches and 24 yet to be published.
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October 2021
A new cache placed in Crowton by Pink Icing was the first in Cheshire and brings the number of counties the series is in to 55.
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June 2021
The series reached 54 counties with the first cache placed in Merseyside at Rainford by The Magna Defender
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April 2021
The series reached the 1000 milestone with a Wherigo cache at the Old Palace in Tarring, West Sussex.
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The series now has two bookmark lists 1-999 and 1000-1999 and the website map now has the option to view either in bookmark list view or in North /South counties.
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February 2021
The first cache to be placed on the Isle of Man was published in Onchan. Lockdown restrictions were eased on the Island earlier than the remainder of the UK. An article about the placing of the cache was published in Seeker magazine.
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Updated finder awards and new CO awards were announced with a new badge to upload onto profiles showing 10 levels.
January 2021
The delivery of the 2021 neon geocoins arrived and distribution started to all those that had pre-ordered.
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The facebook page reached 500 members on 14th January but following village hall Week it had 600+ members.
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13th January - #900 was issued, unfortunately due to lockdown with Covid 19 no caches are being reviewed so publication is delayed.
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Village hall Week challenge was to take a selfie at a village hall due to lockdown restrictions on travel. 255 selfies were posted. 84 of them had a cache placed and 156 as potential locations for one.
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3D models of the village hall series logo have been made and are on sale via cache 'n' carry shop.
2020
December 2020
The year finished with 881 active caches in the series, 53 archived and 64 numbers issued but waiting publication
September 2020
The first village hall series cache to be published in Warwickshire was placed at Leek Wootton by mmmPIZZA
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August 2020
The first two Geocachers to reach 600 finds were Kaathuul and CmdVimes
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April 2020
Profile award badges are released for finders of Village hall Series caches. They depict a village hall made of different construction material. Level one starts with a mud hut for 5 - 9 finds and the badges go to level 10 which is a brick village hall (The last 3 badges will be achievable when more geocaches are published).
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January 2020
A village hall geocoin race was announced on 14th January and a new tab added to the website with details. The race will start on the anniversary of the first cache being placed on 18th February. All entries must be submitted by Sunday 9th February. A Geocoin race logo was added.
2019
December 2019
The series finished the year with 575 active caches, 29 archived caches and 20 numbers awaiting publication.
Thank you to everybody for your support of the series and looking forward to the see what the next decade brings the series.
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November 2019
The series reached 600 numbers issued with caches in 44 counties with recent additions in Middlesex, County Durham, Dumfries & Galloway, West Yorkshire and South Yorkshire
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August 2019
6000 cachers have now found a Village Hall Cache and there are 60 cachers that have found 50+ caches in the series.
July 2019
The Village Hall Series was mentioned in the Podcast show episode 94 and a competition set to find or set 3 VHS caches.
June 2019
The series reached 500 caches with the publication of GC87W5D Heydon in Norfolk by Waves117. This is a very special hall with lots of history as it was one of two remaining accommodation ex army huts from the first world war and is in a privately owned village .....more details are on the cache page.
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Some Village Hall Series stats have been produced at the time of reaching 500 caches
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March 2019
The series reached a new milestone of #400 with a cache at Horton & Chalbury in Dorset
Two new counties added to the series - Kent and Caithness, Scotland
Dunnet joined the series and is the most Northerly village in mainland Great Britian.
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January 2019
The first Geocoin for the series was produced to celebrate village halls week 2019
The first publication in the Channel Islands with St. Saviour, Guernsey #302
Village Hall Week was very popular with 388 geocachers earning a profile badge - 246 found either a cache or attended an event and 142 did both. Separate stats are available with more details
2018
December 2018
The year ended with the series having 261 active caches and 20 archived caches
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UK Cachemag featured a double page article about The Village Hall Series in the November-January edition
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October 2018
Worcestershire is the 32nd county to be included in the series with the publication of #242 in Churchill by Airtomoreira
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September 2018
The series is now on Instragram as villagehallseries and hashtag #villagehallseries
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The first cache with a CHIRP beacon is published. It is a replacement of the archived #03 at Purbrook Deverall Hall GC7TPFQ
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Ahernwen is the first geocaching profile to have found 200 Village Hall Series caches.
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August 2018
The Facebook group reached 200 members
A new county was added to the series with #231 - Ellesborough being published in Buckinghamshire by Tetley glc
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June 2018
Nine new caches added to the series in June including a new county - Herefordshire with two caches by GrumpyAlan
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May 2018
On 22nd May 2018 the series reached its second milestone and GC7Q2H3 was published as #200 by Cheltcupcake. Leckhampton in Gloucestershire is a Grade 2 listed building, built between 1897-1901 and makes a great addition to the series and ideal milestone cache. The series took 4 years 9 months to reach the first 100 caches but has expanded quickly and taken only 6 months to grow from #100 - #200
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East Sussex has its first VHS cache published by Gatwick Girl bringing the series to 24 counties.
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The first T5 Village hall cache was published in Trethurgy, Cornwall by spooky_luke
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April 2018
New county added - Nottinghamshire has a VHS cache published in Ravenshead by Kabsat76 which brings the series to 23 counties
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The Isle of Wight have their first Village Hall Series caches published - #169 St Lawrence and #170 - Niton
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March 2018
Penwood Plodders added 7 new caches on the border of North Hampshire/Berkshire
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Budock Water which was one of the original Cornish caches and first published in October 2015 but archived in November 2017 was replaced with a new version of #28 by the same CO’s (Fine&Brave)
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February 2018
20 new caches are published this month helped particularly by Wandering Druid around Wiltshire and Poshrule who placed caches in both Cambridgeshire and Somerset.
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Gloucestershire is added to the map with #145 Swinton Village by Cheltcupcake
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Scotland had its first wherigo published in Livingston, West Lotian #134
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January 2018
The series grew very quickly during the month with nearly daily requests for numbers. 22 caches were added in January alone with a many caches added in Wiltshire by Wandering Druid and in Hampshire by Happy Panda and Ginge8784 who reached 6 caches around Alton.
Wiltshire also saw the first Earth cache to be added to the series – Chilton Foliat. It was first published in December 2017 but not included in the series to start with.
Northamptonshire’s first village hall cache was published in Thurning - #125
January saw Wales get the first cache in the series #130 in Pontlliw near Swansea was placed by Jabawokee.
The first National village hall week was 22nd January – 28th January and to celebrate this a souvenir could be added to the profile of anybody finding a cache from the series during this week. 102 cachers qualified for the souvenir and logged 221 found logs over 83 caches in the series.
2017
December 2017
The series had grown quickly during the year this was helped by a few CO’s that placed multiple caches – LizMar2010 covering Devon and Cornwall border with Village Hall caches, and Tadley Trailbrazers starting a trend for more caches in North Hampshire. By the end of the year there had been 113 caches published in the series.
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Look-sharp placed the first cache in Oxfordshire in December and the last cache of the year for the series was the first wherigo cache in Blackborough #113
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Due to requests from a few cachers the Village Hall Series facebook page was created on 1st December 2017.
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November 2017
The series reached it’s first milestone and #100 was a letterbox placed by heartradio and included a bespoke stamp in a unique container – a very worthy to celebrate the series reaching 100
October 2017
The Village Hall website is launched – www.villagehallseries.wixsite.com/geocaching and the village hall series logo designed and added to cache pages.
September 2017
Derbyshire joined the series with two caches by rphminiz
The series had it’s first puzzle cache placed by Lizmar2010 in Holsworthy
August 2017
Cambridgeshire had the first Village Hall Series cache placed by Mole125 who also added the first letterbox cache to the series in Bluntisham.
2016
2016
This year saw the series spread extensively in Cornwall and also spreading into to many new counties.
Wiltshire and Somerset had their first publications in July and in Essex #53, which was a 2012 cache was renamed to be included in the series.
Scotland had it’s first Village Hall cache when a previously published cache was renamed to join the series. The series finished the year at #59
2015
December 2015
By the end of 2015 there have been 15 added during the year and the series is now up to #36
October 2015
The series suddenly takes off in Cornwall with Fine&Brave placing caches in six Village Halls and making the series popular with Cornish cachers who began to request more numbers.
August 2015
After a year of no publications Rake is added and West Sussex has its first village Hall Series cache at Plaistow (now archived)
2014
August 2014
The first caches in Devon are published #23 and #24 and are the only two caches to add to the series in the whole of 2014
2013
December 2013
At the end of 2013 there are 22 Village Hall series caches by 11 CO’s
March 2013
The first cache outside of Hampshire – Thursley in surrey is published on 03.03.13
Burpham published in 2011 is renamed to join the series at the end of March
February 2013
The first cache was placed in Denmead, Hampshire on 18.02.13 followed by another 10 locally by four different CO’s