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. Rudston

Q2. Danes Dyke


The initial clues seem to place us in one of the Eastender's favourite parts of the big British island, ie the East Riding of Yorkshire, somewhere on the outskirts of the resort town of Bridlington. There appear to be at least four medieval village sites in the vicinity, Hilderthorpe, Wilsthorpe, Auburn and Low Caythorpe. From the directions given in the text, that the resort is three miles or so north north east from the abandoned village's western flank, the author is probably at the site of Auburn village.

Travelling five miles to the west of Bridlington, would bring us to the village of Rudston and this is where a novelist called Winifred Holtby was born c 1898. Ms Holtby wrote a novel called 'South Riding', which has a character in it called 'Sarah Burton. According to some of her bios, after a short but prolific career as a novelist, the poor woman died of Bright's disease at the relatively young age of 37. She was buried in Rudston churchyard, which also appears to be where the twenty five foot monolith is located.

Bridlington claims to be one of Britains busiest shellfish ports and a band leader who joined the municiple orchestra there c 1903, was one Wallace Hartley, who died c 1912, while playing for the last time, on board the RMS Titanic as it sunk beneath the waves.The painter-cum-architect-cum furniture designer is probably William Kent, some of his biographies claim that he was baptised c 1668, in St Mary's church, Bridlington.

Driving east,north east out of Bridlington would take us across a ditch and earthworks called 'Danes Dyke', which crosses Flamborough Head, from north to south. Some of the references I checked claim that this defensive structure was not in fact constructed by Danes at all and is in fact Iron age in origin.There do appear to be remains of a chalk castle (built c 12th century) in the village of Flamborough. Flamborough Head lighthouse, is around eighty seven feet high, with a range of twenty four nautical miles and was designed by an architect called Samuel Wyatt (born c 1737). The Eastender initially thought (and he'd glugged a few ales by this point) that North west of the lighthouse, lies the Flamborough Cliffs Nature Reserve, which the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust website, claims is one of the most important seabird colonies in Europe but if you read the comments, you will see that it is actually Bempton Cliffs Nature Reserve, which lies north west of the lighthouse.

N.B. The Eastender has moved to moderated comments due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink, posting on his page. Rest assured though, if you have a non abusive comment relating to solving the puzzle and possible solutions, he will publish it.