Saturday 3 December 2016

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. Dalbeattie


Q2. Southerness Lighthouse


Quite tricky this week, if you believe the clue about the lighthouse designer being born in 1854, then this places us at Helliar Holm, in Orkney which was according to some of the reference sources I checked, built by David Alan Stevenson c 1893. Helliar Holm however, does not fit in with the other clues in the puzzle and those seem to point to the location as being in Dumfries and Galloway and the thirty three acre 'Hestan Island' which has a solar powered lighthouse, with the originals being built c 1893 and c 1850. Couldn't find much information about an engineer born in 1854, who built the second one.

The Abbey is probably 'Dundrennan Abbey' which was built c 1142 by David I, who was a son of King Malcolm. It is thought that Mary Queen of Scots stopped here c 15th May 1568, on her way out of Scotland. A small town which lies to the north east of the abbey and which is famous for granite is likely to be 'Dalbeattie'. A king called 'John Balliol' (died c 1314) is thought in some quarters, to have been the owner of 'Buittle castle', which lies on the north western outskirts of Dalbeattie.

Driving south east from Dalbeattie, could bring us to Southerness and this dorpie has a disused lighthouse which was first constructed c 1748/49 and deactivated in the mid 1930s. Some of the reference sources I looked at claim that it is around thirty two feet high.


N.B. due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you gave a comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.


Saturday 19 November 2016

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. The Wiltshire and Berks Canal


Q2. Calne

Quite tricky this week, the initial clues possibly place us in or near Melksham, in Wiltshire, which looks to be around two miles or so from the southern end of what's left of the Wiltshire and Berks Canal. Some of the reference sources I checked, claim that the Stanley aqueduct, which carried the navigation over the river Marden, collapsed c 1901 and that the waterway had been further damaged by the army practicing with demolition charges.

The thirteenth century 'Lacock Abbey', founded by Ela, Countess of Salisbury, as a nunnery of the Augustinian order, looks to be around four miles north of Melksham and it was here that the great British genius, William Henry Fox Talbot, conducted his ground breaking experiments with photography, producing a negative c 1834 which showed one of the lattice windows in the abbey.

The canal forms a three way junction near to the village of Stanley and the short south eastern branch, used to terminate at a wharf, in the town of Calne. Bowood house lies around two miles south south east of the junction and at one time, this was the home of the Marquess of Landsdowne, whose family motto was 'Virtue Non Verbis', which can be translated as 'By Courage Not Words'. The polymath Joseph Priestley conducted his experiments with gases in a laboratory in Bowood House, discovering Oxygen there c 1774. Priestley was chased out of the UK by a bunch of torch and pitchfork wielding cretins who burned his house down and destroyed his laboratory and he eventually had to flee to America, although he was relatively lucky compared to what happened to one of his scientific contemporaries in oxygen experimentation, one Antoine Lavoisier, who had his head chopped off by the ignoratti. Another great scientist and medical practitioner who carried out experiments at Bowood house, was Jan Ingenhousz and he appears to have discovered photosynthesis in the very laboratory that Priestly used.


The causeway mentioned in the clues, is likely 'Maud Heath's Causeway' and some of the references sources I read on this, claim that it has sixty four brick arches and was the result of a legacy by a lady who made her fortune selling eggs at a nearby market. A stretch of the Wiltshire and Berks canal which still has water in it, lies north of RAF Lyneham, which closed for business c 2012.

N.B. Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured that if you have a comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.





Saturday 12 November 2016

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. Grantham


Q2. Saint Wulfram


The initial clues seem to place us north west of Bourne, in Lincolnshire, at 'Grimsthorpe Castle', which originates c 13th century and was remodelled for the owner, 'Robert Bertie' by the architect 'Sir John Vanbrugh' c 18th century. 'Lady Nancy Astor' died in the castle c 1964 and was the first woman MP to take up her seat in the house of commons c 1919, the first woman elected prior to that (Constance Markievicz) could not take up their seat, as they would not swear the oath of fealty. Nancy Astor was apparently a gifted practitioner in the art of banter and bandinage and one account of a verbal sparring session with Winston Churchill, made the Eastender laugh out loud when he read it...

Lady Nancy Astor : "Winston, if you were my husband, I'd poison your tea"

Churchill : "Nancy, if I were your husband, I'd drink it..."


I digress, the seventeenth century house is probably 'Belton House', which lies on the North Eastern outskirts of the town of Grantham. Some of the reference sources I checked claim that this was built for Sir John Brownlow c 1680s and subsequently altered c 1770, by the architect 'James Wyatt' (born c 1746). A clairaudient medium born in Grantham c 1920, was probably 'Doris Stokes', her autobiography was titled 'Voices in My Ear'. The mathematician Isaac Newton (born c 1642) was according to some of his biographies, educated at the 'Free Grammar School of King Edward VI', in Grantham.

The hotel which later became a shopping centre is probably 'the George', which features in a Charles Dickens book called Nicholas Nickleby, published c 1838/39. A church with a two hundred and eighty two feet high spire in Grantham, is most likely 'St Wulfram's'. St Wulfram's feast day is in some reference sources, recorded as being on the 20th March. The puzzle author is 'Handbagged' probably as a veiled reference to Mrs Thatcher, who was born in Grantham.

N.B. Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.



Saturday 5 November 2016

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. The Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre


Q2. General George S Patton


They may as well just pre populate the answer text boxes with the actual answers, the initial clues most likely place us at Jodrell Bank Discovery Centre, which is home to the Lovell radio telescope, (named after Sir Bernard Lovell born c 1913), which was constructed c 1957. The site also features a thirty five acre arboretum, which contains a national collection of crab apple and rowan trees.


The national park ten miles to the east of Jodrell Bank is probably the Peak District National park and a country house built c 18th century, could be Capesthorne Hall. One of the architects involved in its construction was Anthony Salvin (born c 1799). Six miles to the south east of Lovell's marvellous radio telescope (and the guy was a genius who could track ionisation trails in the atmosphere caused by meteorites, with WWII army surplus radio equipment  housed in a shed and on an old searchlight mounting, fitted with an array of Yagi antennas), lies the twenty six mile long Macclesfield canal, which according to some of the reference sources I checked, was opened for business, c 1831.

The 'Tote that barge' hint appears to originate from a song called 'Ol' Man River' from a Hammerstein musical called 'Show Boat' c 1927. Northwest of the discovery centre is 'Peover Hall' and this is where General George S Patton had a billet during WWII. Peover hall, according to some reference sources, was constructed c 16th century by Sir Randle Mainwaring. It seems that Patton was more frightened of the American forces than the Werhmacht, as his troops were shelled all the way from the Normandy beachhead by an innumerate US army artilleryman called 'Mulligan', who could not tell one shell from another and strafed and bombed to hell by their own air corps, when the weather permitted them to take off. "Always do more than is required of you" is one of the quotes attributed to Patton.

N.B. due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.

Saturday 29 October 2016

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. The Lynton and Barnstaple Railway


Q2. Lynmouth Foreland Lighthouse


They might as well pre populate the text box for question one with the correct answer and have done with, as the huge giveaway clue "Perchance it is not dead, but sleepeth", immediately places us in North Devon, at the small section of the Lynton and Barnstaple Railway (opened c 1898, closed c 1935, re-opened c 2004) which is still operational. Five miles or so, south west of the western terminus of the line, lies Arlington Court, which is described on the national trust website as an "Intriguing Regency house and horse drawn vehicles, set in picturesque gardens".

Travelling north east of the railway, would bring us to the towns of Lynton and Lynmouth, which are connected by a cliff railway. The OS map shows that there is also a 'Point Perilous' there. The puzzle author is not wrong when he says it has an ominous ring, for Lynton sits at the confluence of two rivers, which flow through steep sided and relatively narrow gorges and consequently when there is heavy rainfall, the place is at very grave risk of being destroyed by raging torrents and this appears to be what happened on the 15/16th August 1952, with a wall of water hitting the town and the boulders carried therein, which were propelled through by the water, destroyed many homes and the community suffered a shocking and appalling loss of life, with around thirty four people reported killed in the catastrophe. From watching some of the old newsreel footage of the event, it seems that the guy who owned the hotel, saved three people from being swept out to sea, by pulling them in through the window.

A good old rebel loose cannon Norman boy, called 'Percy Bysshe Shelley' stayed at Lynton c 1812 and one of his employees 'Daniel Isaac Eaton', was lifted by the bizzies, for handing out some of Shelley's pamphlets which contained extracts from Thomas Paine's 'Age of Reason'. Eaton's hermeneutics by way of defence at his trial were to no avail, as a biased religio-fascist judge and a dodgy jury, then convicted him on a trumped up charge of 'blasphemous libel' (The Eastender apologizes for inadvertently invoking the bewigged bampot from the Eilean Siar, and hopes he does not appear and start building walls) and the hapless pamphleteer was thrown into the chokey and pilloried once a month. Shelley wrote an essay c 1812 called  'A letter to Lord Ellenborough' (family motto "Law and Equity Combined") about the episode, which must have cheered Daniel Eaton up no end, while he was getting chamber pots, dead animals and rotten vegetables thrown at him by an angry mob.

The national trail is probably the 'South West Coast Path' and following it east and then north would bring us to the 'Lynmouth Foreland Lighthouse', which some of the reference sources I checked, claim is fifteen metres or forty nine feet in height. Also appears to have been constructed c 1900.

N.B. due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a non abusive quip or comment relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.


Saturday 22 October 2016

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. Cobham

Q2. Ashford


The initial clues appear to place us on the railway half a mile or so north of the village of Cobham, in Kent. The quote "I can discern a cross, and a 13, and then a T. This is important.”,  seems to be from a work by Charles Dickens, called 'The Pickwick Papers', first published in serial form c 1836. Mr Pickwick unearths a stone with an inscription on it in a village and some reference sources claim that Dickens used Cobham as his model for the aforementioned dorpie. According to some of his biographies, the architect Sir Herbert Baker was born in a seventeenth century red brick house in Cobham, which was called 'Owletts'. Among his projects, Baker had a hand in the reconstruction of the bank of England c 1921 and Tyne Cot cemetery at Passchendale near Ypres in Belgium, which may be one of the biggest British war cemeteries in the world.

The railway line is carried across the river Medway by a viaduct, as is the M2 on adjacent motorway bridges. The airport is probably Rochester airport (the Eastender used to program flight computers at the works there, back in the day) and I found some references to Short Stirling bombers being built and tested at the site. After Rochester, the railway passes under the North Downs, via the North Downs or Blue Bell Hill tunnel, as it is also known and thence to Leeds Castle, who have a very beautiful web site, which the Eastender spent a fair bit of time perusing. It turns out that a queen born c 1366 called Anne of Bohemia, spent a Christmas there, with John of Gaunt and was later given the castle by Richard II, c 1382. The line then passes through Ashford, which did have a railway works that opened c 1847 and which according to some of his biographies, was where the conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent was born, c 1895. Malcolm Sargent became conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra c 1950.

Nine miles further down the track brings us to Folkstone racecourse which lies next to Westenhanger Castle and from viewing their web site, this also looks to have a very pleasant aspect.


N.B Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a non abusive comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.

Saturday 15 October 2016

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. Tenby


Q2. Cymbeline


The initial clues would seem to place us near the village of Coedcanlas, which is where, according to some of his biographies, the author Dick Francis was born c 1920 and one of those biographies was called 'The Sport of Queens'. (They might as well just have published the answers in the paper with this huge giveaway hint). Coedcanlas lies within the Pembrokeshire Coast National Park and depending on which reference you check, this is though to be around 240 to 243 square miles in area.

Southeast from Coedcanlas, would bring is to the town of Tenby and it was here, between the years 1920 to 1936, according to some reference sources, that the author Roald Dahl spent his holidays, at a house known as 'The Cabin'. Dorelia McNeil may have been the common law wife of the painter Augustus John, who's bios claim was born at 50 Rope Walk Field, Tenby c 4th Jan 1878.

I found some references to a 'Royal Victoria Pier' in Tenby, which opened c 1899 and was demolished between 1946 and 1953. There does not appear to be much left of the castle in Tenby, which is thought to be of twelfth century origin. There is a watchtower marked on the OS map of the area, which can be found by following the one hundred and eighty six mile Pembrokeshire Coast Path, to the south west of the town. The island which lies one mile off shore, is probably Caldey Island.

The cave in question, could be 'The Cave of Belarius', who was a character in William Shakespeare's play 'Cymbeline', which was published c 1609 and is about a Roman caper around the Milford Haven region of Wales. Belarius used the alias of Morgan, while he hid out in the caves. There are some caves marked on the OS map, to the south west of the town (possibly Hoyle's Mouth Cave, according to some sources).

N.B. Due to the number of people who normally write poison pen letters in green ink posting on his page, the Eastender has moved to moderated comments but rest assured, if you have a non abusive comment or quip relating to the puzzle and its solution, he will endeavour to publish it.