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. Ilkley


Q2. The Keighley and Worth Valley Railway


The initial clues seem to place us in the town of Ilkley, in west Yorkshire. Badger, pancake and swastika, most likely refer to the strange carved stones on Ilkley moor. The Swastika stone, from the pictures I've seen of it, does seem to have a flyflot cross carved on it, though the Badger stone looks more like a mini version of Uluru, than a badger.  Some of the carvings are believed to have been the work of Roman legionaires, who were stationed at the fort in Ilkley but the designs, to my eye at least, look more shamanic in origin and may be the work of a cattle and psilocybin mushroom cult.....

According  to some of his biographies, an architect called Sir Edward Brantwood Maufe, was born in the Sunny Bank district of Ilkley, c 1882. Maufe appears to have designed Guildford cathedral, which was dedicated c 1961. The Roman fort which the stone carving squaddies may have been stationed at, was thought at one time to have been called Olicana but it may actually have been called after the goddess of the river Wharfe, who went by the name of Verbeia.

There does seem to be a plunge pool at White Wells, on Ilkley moor and Ilkley is described as being a spa town in some references. One source I looked at, suggests that Ilkley Pool and Lido was opened c 1936. The second town referred to in the clues, is most probably Keighly. From looking at the OS map, there does not seem to be a road which goes all the way across Ilkley moor (highest point four hundred and two metres, or one thousand three hundred and eighteen feet), south west to Keighly , so the author may have had to take the road through Silsden, which would have taken him across the Leeds and Liverpool canal (one hundred and twenty seven miles long and completed c 1816).

The national trust website, indicates that there is a circa seventeenth century manor house on the north eastern edge of Keighley, called East Riddlesden Hall and a five mile railway, which was one of many that featured in the nineteen seventies film, 'The Railway Children' (directed by a wonderful old British actor, called Lionel Jeffries), is likely to be the 'Keighley and Worth Valley Railway' . This appears to have opened for business c 13th April 1867, closed in 1962 and re-opened again as a heritage railway, c 1968.