Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Marvelously entertaining this week leddies ed jittlemen, many interesting clues for the puzzler to research, with the author cleverly weaving some of the sponsor's SEO keywords into the piece. The Sunday Times programmer has claimed that the competition is closed (it's not, if you scroll down, you can still enter it). Near as I can figure it, the most likely answers are :

Q1. The Cowburn Tunnel

Q2. Kinder Scout National Nature Reserve

The clues in the second paragraph place us in the town of Buxton. There is a shrine called St Anne's well there. Saint Anne was a first century saint whose feast day is 26th July. Buxton has an opera house which was designed by an architect called Frank Matcham (born 1854). It opened in 1903 and according to the records, the first play performed there, was 'The Prologue'. An architect called John Carr (b1723) built the beautiful crescent in the town.

Driving north from Buxton, the author is likely to be on the A6, which goes past a place called Dove Holes. The Dove Holes tunnel, which is 2984 yards long, travels under the road at this point and comes out near a place called Chapel En Le Frith. If you continue north to the Buxton road, you come to a right turn which can lead to a village called Edale (A6187, then the Edale road), which marks the start of the Pennine way. Further along the A6187, about seven miles south east from Edale, as the crow flies, lies the village of Hathersage, where a gentleman called John Nailor is reputed to be buried. The Cowburn tunnel (3702 yards long) lies a little way to the south west of Edale station. The peak district is made up of three parts, the dark peak, the white peak and the south west peak.

However, the author says he did not visit these places and travelled north/north west and this makes it likely that he is travelling on the Hayfield road which goes past a place called Kinder Scout National Nature Reserve. Kinder Scout was the scene of a heroic struggle for access by hikers and ramblers against the goon squad of a deranged NWO neo feudalist bankster financial terrorist absentee landlord, who thought only he should be able to enjoy the scenery . The ramblers took part in a mass tresspass on Kinder Scout on the 24th April 1932 and gained their much desired rights to walk in the countryside.

Around fourteen miles north from Buxton, if you are on the Hayfield road, there is a junction which takes you onto the snake road (ophidian means serpent like) and the pennine way crosses this at a height of 1680ft. The peak overseeing the proceedings, (which someone once tried to land a Liberator bomber on and unsurprisingly managed to break it) is likely to be Mill Hill, which is recorded as being 544 metres or 1785ft high.