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. Wrynose Pass


Q2. Dalegarth Station

внимание друзья! For Q1, some maps show that the road also goes through Hardknott Pass but the three shire stone has Wrynose Pass marked beside it, so the Eastender is taking a punt on Wrynose Pass being the most likely answer.

The initial clues seem to place us on a Ting mound or Moot, near Fell Foot and the village of Little Langdale, in one of the most beautiful areas of England, the Lake District. Ting mounds or Moots, were in the days when the area was inhabited by nomadic entrepreneurial Scandinavians, parliaments, where the locals would gather to discuss the hot topics (and probably percussively), thrash out the issues of the day. A historian who once lived at Fox How, to the north west of the town of Ambleside (which is at the north end of lake Windermere) was most likely Thomas Arnold (b c 1795). Arnold was famous for several historical works, among them 'The History of Rome', 'Lectures on Modern History' and religious tracts of five sermons. A painter born c 1759 whose works include 'George Biggins' and who lived in Ambleside, is most probably Julius Caesar Ibbetson. He seems to have acquired his middle name due to being delivered by Caesarian section at birth. The OS map shows a waterfall called Stockghyll Force, on the eastern edge of Ambleside and some sources claim that it is seventy feet high and is V shaped.

Driving west from the Ting mound parliament, would bring us through Wrynose pass and thence to the 'Three Shire Stone' and it was here in days of yore, that the three counties of Cumberland, Lancashire and Westmorland once met. The monolith was destroyed by a car crash a one point but seems to have since been restored to its former glory, by a stonemason called Gordon Greaves.

Continuing the journey west through Wrynose pass, would likely have brought the puzzle author to the roman fort of Mediobogdum (aka Hardknott Castle), which astonishingly still seems to be standing in places, though some Victorian tinkerers have added a few stones to it, probably for the benefit of the tourist trade. The fort lies next to the river Esk and this is where some sources claim that the name Mediobogdum, meaning 'The fort next to the river bend', comes from.

Five miles or so west of the Roman fort lies Dalegarth station, which is the Eastern terminus of the 'Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway' (aka 'The Ratty') and this appears to be a fifteen inch gauge railway built c1876 as a three foot gauge, before being regauged to fifteen inch, c 1915. The railway's western terminus is in the seaside hamlet of Ravenglass,where the map shows there is also a mainline railway.