“An A to Z of …” is an occasional series of cryptic puzzles, a bit like cryptic crosswords. Each one is based on a single town or parish, in this case the parish of West Hallam. For others in the series, along with the related “So You Think You Know” puzzles, see the bookmark list.
Having done several of these puzzles so far, I thought it was time to turn the spotlight onto my own village. I live fairly close to this cache, so if you're coming over for it let me know and I will come and say hello if I am at home.
West Hallam is an old village - it was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, and it has an old and lovely village centre, which is a designated conservation area. However, the rest of the village is a large housing estate that was developed from the 1970s onwards.
There is no need to visit the posted coordinates, which are not relevant to the puzzle itself – in fact it’s the centre of the village’s football pitch.
Your task is to use the clues to identify 20 street names in the parish, and then use the answers in a few calculations to arrive at the final cache coordinates. If you are not sure what area is included in West Hallam, a map may well help you – it is also likely to help with any names you cannot work out just from the clues. For all of the answers you need to miss out words like “road”, “lane”, “avenue”, etc. Most (but not all) of the answers consist of a single word. And if you find an answer to one of the clues that looks ideal, but you can’t find a matching street, then the chances are that you are wrong (or you’re using a very old map!)
- A twin edge
- Abbot of Ripon
- Achieved a B.A? Got a M.A? It’s included
- Bess didn’t build this street despite the name
- Blackpool, Brighton and Buxton all have one
- Cole was wet and confused
- DE45 1LA
- Diddle diddle
- Gardens, a mansion? Both.
- “Good night Jim Bob” – only one of them
- Ha! It’s in far New Mexico
- Industrial oven
- It’s the county
- Lele (Chad)
- Member of the Fagus family
- Named after John (not Arthur)
- Rowing venue since 1839
- Scrapes at the bottom
- Sounds like a place to have your lorry load checked
- Stanmore to Stratford
Once you have solved them, put the 20 street names into alphabetical order, and then use this to calculate the coordinates.
The cache is to be found at N52 5A.BCD W001 2W.XYZ, where:
A = Number of letters in the 12th street name.
B = Number of street names beginning with the letter H
C = Number of street names beginning with the letter R
D = Number of street names beginning with the letter T
W = Number of street names ending with the letter W
X = Number of letters in the 5th street name
Y = Number of letters in the 17th street name
Z = Number of letters in the 9th street name