North Yorkshire – Wharfedale

Episode 4.10
27 February 1986

1 2 3 4 5

Contestants

Jill King, personnel manager for Tesco, and her husband Martin, marketing employee for a biscuit company; both from Harrow Weald.

Hint to the Treasure

Could be a feather in your cap

Start Position

Clue 1	They’re laiking by the gramineous woods where a latter-day Rhodes will deliver the goods. 1
Leads to	Grass Wood (Grassington) cricket ground – with the bowler

Clue 2	Something’s up by old Amerdale’s foot. Step inside to get the drift, Montgolfier fashion.
Leads to	Kilnsey Crag – in the basket of a hot air balloon

Clue 3	Downstream, terpsichorean folk have discovered Scotland’s national poet and letters from his birthplace. Best skirt round the Barguest of Trollers Gill!
Leads to	Burnsall – under the skirt of the Barguest of Troller’s Gill, one of a group of Morris Dancers 2

Clue 4	Past the place where the Romilly boy came to grief, and opposite his mother’s memorial, take steps into the mesial current. 3
Leads to	Bolton Abbey – on one of the stepping stones across the river

Clue 5	In Sheeptown’s castle, Clifford’s pride. Seek out the archers’ tree inside.
Leads to	Skipton Castle – an arrow in an ancient yew tree in a courtyard

Bonus Clue	Take an initial look at the Great British Hospitals’ X-ray Unit, then check the accommodation.
Leads to	The helicopter – registration G-BHXU 4

Result

The contestants won the treasure, but failed to solve the bonus clue, which led back to the helicopter

Notes
1	‘Laik’ is Yorkshire dialect for ‘play’. ‘Gramineous’ means ‘grassy’.
2	Wincey gleefully tells Annie that The Barguest is an ancient fertility symbol and hopes that Annie will not emerge from under its skirts with a bun in the oven!
3	Cecily de Romille founded Bolton Abbey as an expression of her grief following the drowning of her son in the nearby Strid, a narrow gorge through which the fast-flowing River Wharfe runs and which has claimed the lives of many people who have under-estimated the width when attempting to jump across. ‘Mesial’ means ‘in the middle of’.
4	The contestants assume that the clue is directing them to a local hospital. When Annie asks a passer-by for directions, he thinks that she has been injured! Kenneth looks rather embarrassed and says “I’m speechless – it would never have occurred to me to look there” when Wincey points to the model helicopter that is used to plot Annie’s position on the table-top map: Kenneth and the contestants have been staring at the registration number throughout the whole programme!

Page last modified: 27 March 2014, 12:06