Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Near as I can figure it, through the possibly flawed perceptual filters of my own reality tunnel, the most likely answers this week, seem to me to be:


Q1. Morley


Q2. Kirkstall Abbey


Not much sport involved in solving it this week. The information imparted in the initial paragraph seems to place us squarely in the town of Morley, south west of Leeds, in the beautiful county of Yorkshire. The Morley tunnel is listed as being anything between 3081 yards, 3350 yards, 3388 yards and 4320 yards long, depending on which source you check. There is also a mathematical theorem involving triangles and polygons, called 'Morley's Theorem' and a liberal prime minister of Britain, between 1908 and 1916 (Herbert Henry Asquith) was, according to some references, born on the 12th September 1852, at Croft house, Morley, Yorkshire. 

An industrialist, who built what was at the time the world's largest textile mill (c1853), at Saltaire, near Bradford, was Sir Titus Salt. Titus Salt was according to some of his bios, born in 1803 at the Old Manor house, Morley, near Wakefield.


The puzzle writer then appears to be in the city of Leeds, where the Leeds and Liverpool canal (127 miles long and opened c 1816) and the Aire and Calder Navigation (34 miles long, opened c 1704), pass close to each other. Travelling two short stops from the main station in Leeds would bring us to the suburb of Headingly, where c 1884, at 6 Ash Grove,  an author called Arthur Ransome (writer of 'Swallows and Amazons' and 'Old Peter's Russian Tales'), was born. Some of Ransome's bios convey the impression that he was some sort of proto-beatnik type, who was always skint but loved travelling, writing and feasting on wine and maccaroni cheese, whenever he got some money. A mile or so north west-ish from Headingly, lie the ruins of Kirkstall Abbey, built c 1152 for the Cistercian order. It was of course, once again, 'appropriated' by 'enry the eighth, in the sixteenth century.

Headingly has a cricket ground called 'Headingly Carnegie Cricket ground', which seems to be where the Yorkshire County cricket team had some of their victories.