The Armchair Treasure Hunt Club
Text4Treasure

The recurring Text4Treasure series of hunts are was written by club member Shaun Whitehead. For a small fee, they involve clues being sent to your mobile phone over a set period of time (usually a few days).

The first Text4Treasure was launched via the April 2003 newsletter and was a great success. It was a single hunt for a golden key which turned out to be hidden at the base of a horse chestnut tree in the gardens of the Swan Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Clues were released each day direct to the participants (who each paid £5) at noon between Monday 19 May and Saturday 24 May 2003, with an additional clue on midnight of the final day. The clues made reference to the day's newspapers and led club members Bob Dixon, Martin Dennett and Clive Weatherley to drive from their respective homes to Stratford. It was Martin and Clive that got the key first though, with Bob hot on their heels.

Text4Treasure2 began on Monday 21 July 2003 and three separate hunts covered three regional areas. Again clues were released at midday Monday - Saturday each needing that day's newspaper with extra clues (no newspaper required) being sent out at midnight Saturday/Sunday and then every four hours until solved.

Anthony Perry solved the Northern England hunt and pipped Paul Corby to the treasure by discovering two small badgers at 3 am on Sunday 27 July by the brick train in Darlington. Just after the release of the 8am clue to the South Eastern England hunt, Clive Weatherley (far right) repeated his earlier success and in a mad dash around Wellington's Monument in Hyde Park, beat Nick Ball (near right) and Nick Perry to a silver windmill package in leaves at the foot of a sycamore tree. Finally, barely 90 minutes later, Martin Dennett unplucked the treasure for the Central and Eastern England hunt from behind a fire hydrant near the statue of Isaac Newton in Grantham. Hot on his heels were Craig Jones and Mike Southgate.
Text4Treasure III began on Monday 20 June 2005 and was solved the following Saturday by Martin Dennett, Deborah Hatton and Phil Evans.

Registration was £5 for each of the thee mainland UK regions in which the hunt took place. The three hunts ran concurrently and entrants could compete in more than one region - though travel was required to the final location to claim the prize in any of the regions.

Hidden at two of the regional locations were golden brooches and at the third was a token which could be exchanged for the grand prize - a golden apple adorned with a single diamond. A beatiful life-sized object crafted by Garrard. Prior to the tokens and prizes being found, not even the author knows at which location the grand prize token lies.

Further discussion can be found on our club bulletin board.

The official website is at www.txt4t.com


Return to the site contents or the list of hunts for the general public.