Sunday Times Where Was I? Holiday Competition

Not too bad this week (no questions about furniture). Near as I can figure it, the most likely answers seem to me to be :

Q1. Chester

Q2. Sir Adrian Boult (or just plain Adrian Boult)


The initial clues place us in Deva Victrix or as it is called now, the city of Chester. The river Dee is reported in some references to be around 70 miles long and it appears to be spanned by a suspension bridge. On the north side of the river at the end of the suspension bridge, lies a park where a church called 'St John the Baptist' is situated. I found several references which say that this was the cathedral of a bishop called Peter and was consecrated as such c1075. It held this designation until c1085 when the bishop died. I also found some references which say that both the central tower and the west tower have collapsed more than once (not once as the puzzle author has stated).

Travelling north northwest from St John's brings us to Chester cathedral which was designated as such in 1541. It was upgraded from an abbey (St Werburgh's) which was built (c1092) by the first earl of Chester, a guy called Hugh D'Avranches, who went by the nicknames of 'Fat boy' and 'Wolfman' depending on who he was hanging out with and how much they'd been drinking. Fat Boy's father was called Richard and the first earl died c1101 (shot by a Norwegian bad ass called Magnus Barefoot). He is allegedly buried in the cathedral graveyard. A good ol' Norman boy called Bill the Conqueror gave Chester castle to the Fat Boy Wolfman first earl. The castle has Agricola's tower, a chapel and an eighteenth century gun platform.

The Eastender Himself found a weighty tome in the archives called 'The Cathedral Church of Chester; a description of the fabric and a brief history of the episcopal see' written by one Charles Hiatt and published c1898 as part of the Bell's cathedrals series. This intriguing incunabula contains the dimensions of the nave and the tower and confirms that they are indeed 145 feet long and 127 feet high respectively. It also waxes lyrical about the woodwork in the place . (NB that there were several cathedrals inaugurated c1541, including Gloucester, Peterborough, Bristol and Oxford but the descriptions in the WWI? puzzle do not fit these places as well as Chester).

A conductor called Sir Adrian Boult was born (c1889) in Liverpool road in Chester (Liverpool road lies to the north of Chester cathedral). Boult conducted the orchestra for the coronation of King George VI (the current queen's father) c1937. Some references say that George VI's mother was called Mary from Teck.

Travelling south west from the current cathedral brings us to Chester castle and going north east from there brings us to the back end of St John the Baptists, where the remains of the Roman amphitheatre lie.