West Wycombe

The rebus shows actor Timothy WEST, a candle with a WICK, and a COMB [REB1].

Steward's, Whitehead's, Franklin's, Children's, Miner's, the River Styx and the Inner Temple are all chambers and sights within the Hell-Fire caves [WW1], where Sir Francis Dashwood used to conduct meetings of the Hell-Fire Club. The �huge hexagonal structure� is the mausoleum of the Dashwood family. See http://www.visitbuckinghamshire.org/attractions/info/her_mus/ww-caves/ for more.

The woman from Cambridge and her brother Morticia are the setters of the 2004 ATH, Rosalind Barden and her team. This Hunt was based around cards, especially bridge. �Deep Finesse� is a bridge term and also a computer program that solves bridge problems � it proved less than useful in the 2004 Hunt.

The cards shown are a code based on the precedence order in bridge � clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. So the lowest card, the two of clubs (mentioned as a hint), is A, the three of clubs is B and the ace of diamonds is Z. Then it starts again with the two of hearts being A, through to the ace of spades being Z. Thus any letter may be represented by either one of two cards. The decode is VICARAGE VENUS [WW2] which is a reference to The Old Vicarage. Grantchester, by Rupert Brooke, a poem that had some significance in the 2004 Hunt. In it there is a reference to ANADYOMENE [WW3], which is another name for the goddess Venus:

Is dawn a secret shy and cold
Anadyomene, silver-gold?

The �digitalis was in bloom� refers to the first line of The Old Vicarage, Grantchester, �Just now the lilacs are in bloom�, with the replacement of lilac by the Latin name of the foxglove [WW4].

St Lawrence�s church is surmounted by a golden ball which holds six people � it was intended as a lookout post but was also used as a dining room by the Hell-Fire club. The church interior was copied from the Sun temple at Palmyra near Damascus [WW5]. The memorial stone is my invention. The words are from Byron�s poem TO TIME [WW6] � Byron was a key theme of the 2004 Hunt.

The symbol at the bottom is a swordfish. Taking the first letter from the words �does one reference any distant orbs� reveals DORADO [WW7] � the constellation Dorado in the Southern Hemisphere is also called The Swordfish, or XIPHIAS   [WW8].

Passwords and Directions

(a) ANADYOMENE to reach Bledlow Ridge
(b) TO TIME to reach the M40 Junction 4
(c) XIPHIAS to discover one half of the treasure clue (see later for a description of this)