The Borough of Broxtowe is the local council area in the south west of Nottinghamshire, covering the area between Nottingham city and the boundary with Derbyshire. Oddly, most of the old village and modern estate of Broxtowe itself is not in the borough but is actually in the City of Nottingham. The borough covers 31 square miles and has a population of around 114,000.
There is no need to visit the posted coordinates – in fact, please don’t, as it is in the middle of a busy roundabout, and it is not at all relevant to the puzzle itself.
For this puzzle, you need to solve the cryptic clues below to identify 20 place names in the borough – some are sizeable places, but a couple of them are really quite obscure. Local knowledge will certainly help, but if you are struggling a good map will come in handy. All the names are a single word.
- A wee dram on for this
- Actor or naturalist?
- Bin lyres
- Famous diamond
- Fasten this car with pieces of wire
- Heavy weight of honey?
- House of almonds
- How straw can change.
- Large bird on a form of transport
- Last bit of the loo
- Lindy Hop consumed
- Meadows of Alaudidae
- Named after a plot to assassinate the queen, though with a slightly different spelling
- One too many letters for a bricklayer to use it
- Shelter for Dracula’s writer
- S.O.S. call
- Sounds like fields where you would grow cereals
- Stream with a thin coating of gold
- The name means “beautiful valley”
- You can cool down nicely here
Once you have solved them, put the 20 place names into alphabetical order, and then use this to calculate the coordinates.
The cache is to be found at N5A BC.DEF W001 VW.XYZ, where:
A = Number of place names beginning with the letter T
B = Number of letters in the 13th place name, divided by 2.
C = Number of letters in the 11th place name
D =Number of letters in the 18th place name
E = Number of letters in the 16th place name, minus the number of letters in the 17th place name
F = Number of place names beginning with the letter A
V = Number of letters in the 9th place name, minus the number of letters in the 10th place name
W = Number of place names beginning with the letter B
X = Number of place names beginning with the letter S
Y = Number of letters in the 14th place name
Z = Number of letters in the 6th place name
I first came across this type of puzzle with “Town and Around” (GC8D5NM) by TooTsuite in Nottingham. There is also “Around and about Matlock” (GC98W1P) by Bleausardv2. I have published similar puzzles in Amber Valley (GC9CACJ) and in Erewash (GC9CAC5).