I found this a very unusual crossword, much tougher than usual (perhaps scheduled because of the Bank Holiday). I spent 47 mins at it, but did not solve it, not getting 23 ac
* = anagram < = reversed
ACROSS
1 NA (POLE O) N
6 A S WELL
9 BETEL GE (‘extremely gruesome’ = first and last letters) USE
10 Dead as a DO DO
11 C (LE (AVA)G) E Actress Ava Gardner from quite a while back.
13 BARRA (ge)
14 SORDID hidden
15 LOCKS (secures) TEP Pet<
17 G (Glow-worm’s beginning) EODESIC (codes ie)*, I think
19 NELLIE Got this right without knowing why “When she married a cleric, she used to sit and dream” Refers to something this blogger ain’t come across.
20 THE ME
22 IN WARD L(il)Y
23 LIME “Soil treatment for one of two trees” Had to look this up and do not understand it.
24 SUI GENERIS (ruins siege)*
26 HECTOR H for R in Rector R is third letter of parishioners.
27 EX TOLLED
DOWN
2 AVE (abbrev for avenue)
3 ONE-HANDED
4 ENGLAND N (last of salmon) in (angled)*
5 NOUVELLE CUISINE If I’ve interpreted this correctly it’s (Nice U lovelies un)* with undressing splitting into un dressing and dressing indicating the anagram. Well Eimi’s said he not always strictly Ximenean…
6 ALE (MBI) C Alec Guinness, actor
7 WADER Hidden <
8 LUDGATE HILL (A dull light)* containing E
12 LOOS EST RIFE
16 S (OLAR C) ELL (coral)*
16 S (one of several) PENS ER
19 NE W LEFT
21 EVE N T noontime = nt More non-Xim splitting, I think.
25 IKE Alternate letters Nickname of President Eisenhower
19 Across – I didn’t get it at all, I still don’t understand the first part of the clue. But it’s from the old song:
There’s an old mill by the stream,
Nellie Dean!
Where we used to sit and dream,
Nellie Dean!
And the waters as they flow
Seem to murmur soft and low.
You’re my heart’s desire.
I love you,
Nellie Dean! Sweet Nellie Dean!
Re 19 Ac: Married = partnered? Dean = cleric?
23 across. Lime is a substance you top dress soil with, and the name for two unrelated trees.
… and one elm (rotten)
There were one or two things that struck me as a bit loose here:
a) ‘When’ in 1ac, which seems to have no part in the wordplay, simply being there to tie the three clues together.
b) ‘pet’ = ‘fit’ in 15ac. Perhaps there’s a meaning of ‘pet’ that I’m not familiar with. If ‘fit’ means ‘sexually attractive’, how does this equal ‘pet’?
c) ‘one third of parishioners’ for R seems rather a stretch. Just possibly ‘the third’, but ‘one’?
I thought PET = FIT was OK meaning e.g. sulk. Thought WHEN was OK as a link.
Took me a while to understand ‘third of parishioners’ but when I did, I thought ‘one’ was all right to indicate ‘a’. Thanks, Flay, for that song. Still not too sure about LIME with the multiplicity of ?I?e alternatives.
The justification for “one” third of parishioners is that R is the third letter of parishioners, but the manipulated word (rector) has two Rs, only one of which must be replaced by H.