Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Near as I can figure it, this week the most likely answers seem to me to be


Q1.  (Sir) Hugh Fortescue Locke-King

Q2. Stoke D'Abernon

(N.B. for question one, not totally sure if the landowner had a knighthood, though some references claim that he did, he was also known as Hugh Locke-King and Hugh F Locke-King )

The initial clues place us at the Brooklands museum in Surrey, a banked race track and airfield were constructed there by an entrepreneur called Hugh Fortescue Locke King c 1907. Another businessman, called Selwyn Edge, drove non stop around the completed track in 1907, for twenty four hours, covering a distance of almost 1600 miles. Some sources claim that the first aircraft which had an enclosed cabin was the  Avro type F, which was designed by Sir Edwin Alliot Verdon Roe (born c 1877). A.V Roe tested some of his aircraft designs at Brooklands. The site was later acquired by a company called Vickers c 1915 and it was here that the first VC10 was flown in 1962, with a further 53 VC10s being manufactured on the site. Some of these are said to be still in service as tankers with the RAF.

East of the Brooklands museum, lies Whiteley village, some of the references claim that the money to build this was bequeathed by William Whiteley (owner of Whiteley's department store) following his murder (he was shot) c 1907. Three miles south of Brooklands, lie the 240 acre gardens at Wisely, now owned by the Royal Horticultural Society and gifted to them c 1903 by a merchant called Thomas Hanbury (born c1832).

Travelling four miles south east of Brooklands, brings us to the village of Stoke D'Abernon and it is here that a musician born in 1916, Yehudi Menuhin, founded his music school c 1964. Some sources claim that he made his musical debut aged 7, c 1923, in San Fransisco. The address of the Menuhin school is given as Stoke D'Abernon but it lies south of the M25 and is not actually in the settlement itself, which lies north of the M25. A little way to the south of the village and close to the motorway, lies St Mary's church which was built c 7th/8th century.  The church does appear to have some brasses which date back to the fourteenth century. The brass of Sir John the Elder is said by some sources, to be the oldest in England.

Link to the competition

Where Was I?