“An A to Z of …” is an occasional series of mainly cryptic puzzles, a bit like cryptic crosswords. Each one is based on a single town or parish, in this case the town of Swadlincote in South Derbyshire, affectionately known to the locals as "Swad". The bookmark list links to others in this series and also the “So You Think You Know” puzzles.
As with all these puzzles, it pays to check first precisely where the town boundaries are, as sometimes it is not obvious – I've tried to avoid streets in the conjoined towns including Newhall, Midway, Woodville and Church Gresley but it is not always clear where the "borders" are. Some of the newer developments are to all intents and purposes in Swadlincote and I've treated them thus for the purposes of this puzzle but some maps may suggest otherwise.
There is no need to visit the posted coordinates, which are not relevant to the puzzle itself but are the local council offices.
Your task is to use the clues below to identify 20 street names in the town, and then use the answers in a few calculations to arrive at the final cache coordinates. While some of the clues might lead you to an answer that incorporates the full street name including words such as “road”, “lane”, “avenue”, etc. you should omit these words for all of the calculations and therefore in most but not all cases you will be left with a single word for the calculations; likewise, the same applies if a street name begins with “The”. If you find an answer to one of the clues that seems ideal, but you can’t find a matching street, then the chances are that you are wrong (or you’re using an old map!)
- Wilkie Collins novel
- Long distance footpath
- Large mine
- Famous battle
- Identity crisis?
- Got the blues?
- Town in North Nottinghamshire
- Soap
- Lord Alfred?
- Usually found on a roof
- North in wild rose
- Land owned by a church
- Cool a sea bird?
- Shadowy place?
- Staffordshire village between Rugeley and Lichfield
- Sports car or shopping centre?
- The French nearly not right
- No network connection?
- He sadly died in a mining tragedy
- Part of Yorkshire or a US city?
Once you have solved them, put the 20 street names into alphabetical order, and then use this to calculate the coordinates. The final is not a park and grab, please do not attempt to stop nearby to GZ.
The cache is to be found at N 52 4A.BCD W 001 3W.XYZ, where
A = number of letters in the 9th name minus number of letters in the 17th name
B = number of names beginning with the letter E
C = number of letters in the 13th name
D = number of names beginning with the letter C
W = Sum of the number of letters in the 9th name
X = Number of letters in the 16th name
Y = Number of letters in the 2nd name
Z = Number of letters in the 10th name