The deadline has passed. The entries are in.
The submissions have all been printed out, assembled in anonymised ranks and minutely assessed for locational and factual accuracy. And the clear winner is ...
But first the answers.
WEEK 1
1. Teal but no teal.
No. 37a Drummond Place.
2. Hare through a glass darkly.
Glass & Thompson café, 2 Dundas Street, viewed through the window of the Anthony Woodd Art Gallery at No. 4.
3. Small mammoth.
Christmas window display, Harburn Hobbies, 67 Elm Row.
4. Worthy of the companion.
Statue of Sir John Hope, 4th Earl of Hopetoun, outside Royal Bank of Scotland, Dundas House, 36 St Andrew Square. He possessed ‘THE ASSEMBLED VIRTUES OF DISTANT PERIODS OF HISTORY, THE UNSHAKEN PATRIOTISM OF THE ANCIENT ROMAN, THE SPIRIT OF HONOUR, AND GENTLENESS, AND COURTESY PROPER TO THE AGE OF CHIVALRY, TOGETHER WITH SKILL IN THE ART OF WAR, WORTHY OF THE COMPANION OF ABERCROMIE, MOORE AND WELLINGTON’.
5. Angry-sounding setting for lion rampant.
The ‘improbable tenement of 1904’ at 3–5 Eyre Terrace.
WEEK 2
1. Blue plaque.
James Craig memorial, St James Square/James Craig Walk. ‘PLAQUE KINDLY DONATED BY JAMES GRAY & SON LTD., IRONMONGERS IN THE NEW TOWN SINCE 1818’.
2. Taplow blue.
Sign attached to rear of former Queen Street studio in Thistle Street Lane N.E. (The Taplow blue is a variety of thistle.)
3. Blue corner.
Corner Store, 26 Spey Terrace.
4. Slow blue.
L’Escargot Bleu, 56 Broughton Street.
5. Pink view.
Graffiti on former railway bridge parapet overlooking Warriston Cemetery at Warriston Junction.
WEEK 3
1. ROwand on a windOw.
Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, Council member of the Society of Antiquaries, architect of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery and Catholic Apostolic Church (Mansfield-Traquair Centre), commemorated in stained-glass window at the top of SNPG’s eastern staircase.
2. PrOper MOtiOn.
Thomas Henderson memorial tablet, west side of the City Observatory, Calton Hill. From its large proper motion, Henderson calculated that Alpha Centauri was a comparatively close star.
3. NO surprise here.
Sign outside McNaughtan’s Bookshop, 3a Haddington Place.
4. MOOn-eyed MOggie.
Street art on wall at corner of 31 Broughton Street and Broughton Street Lane.
5. SOlar system.
Pierced dome ceiling at Royal Bank of Scotland, Dundas House, 36 St Andrew Square.
WEEK 4
1. A view from mid-air.
1 Greenside Row, photographed from the Leith Street footbridge.
2. A heavenly view
St Paul's and St George’s Church, photographed from the St James Centre multi-storey car park.
3. Ups and downs (more than one storey)
Steps leading to Life Story, 53 London Street.
4. A new beginning.
Development on Shrub Place with Inchkeith Court in the background.
5. A fitting end?
Richard Murphy’s ‘book end’ on Hart Street.
WEEK 5
1. Tootsy.
The Manuscript of Monte Cassino, Broughton Street (Paolozzi’s ‘Big Foot’).
2. Engineer’s Thumb?
Gerald Laing’s A Memorial to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Picardy Place. In the 1892 short story ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’, it was missing.
3. Footbridge.
Eoghan Bridge’s Horse, Rider, Eagle, Silvermills.
4. No Renault.
Alexander Stoddart’s Clio (the Muse of History), atop the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Queen Street.
5. Momentous absence.
George E. Bissell's statue of Abraham Lincoln on the Emancipation Monument commemorating Scots killed during the American Civil War, Old Calton Burying Ground. In his Inaugural Address, Lincoln warned the South,‘In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war.’
TO THE VICTOR THE SPOILS
The winning entry – scoring 23 out of 25 – was a combined effort by the New Town Clean Streets Campaign and New Town Flâneur. Many congratulations on what was an astounding display of local knowledge, detective work and cryptic clue solution.
They identified all the locations and lost marks only because of some minor clerical errors and an horrendously strict marking system. They may console themselves with, or fall out over, a prize bottle of wine.
In second place came Chris Gray.
Thanks go to all who participated, and to those who seethed, complained, cavilled and made ungenerous remarks from the sidelines. We enjoyed them all.
[Image top-right: Michael Dunn/Creative Commons.]