THE PRIZE CROSSWORD

There’s an amazing £1,500 prize for the first correct solution drawn at random in our general knowledge Prize Crossword. Entries must arrive by Friday, October 29 (photocopies not accepted). Today’s solution will appear next week and the winner’s name on Sunday, November 14. SEE BELOW THE GRID for details on how to enter.

Across

10 and 27 Down American tennis player who won the Wimbledon women’s singles title six times in the 1960s and 1970s (6,4,4) 11 Large-eared, insectivorous, flying mammal with a fleshy growth around the nostrils (9,3)

12 Charitable donations of money or goods to the poor (4)

13 Town in Hampshire, on Portsmouth harbour, site of a naval base since the 16th Century (7)

14 and 30 Down A region of West Gloucestershire bounded by the rivers

Wye and Severn (6,2,4) 15 Characters in a series of books and a comic strip by writer-illustrator Tove Jansson (7)

16 20th Century English poet and novelist whose best-known poem is Not Waving But Drowning (6,5)

20 Christopher –––, English architect who designed St Paul’s Cathedral after the Great Fire of London (4)

21 The –––, the main building of the United States Congress (7)

22 A vast, treeless zone lying between the ice cap and the timber line of North America and Eurasia (6) 23 NASA program that launched a series of manned space flights between 1968 and 1972 (6) 25 The Mediterranean coastal region between Cannes in France and La Spezia in Italy (7)

27 A small military road vehicle with four-wheel drive (4) 28 A method of growing plants without the use of soil, by using water through which nutrients are pumped (11) 29 The anhydrous commercial form of sodium carbonate (4,3) 32 A hand tool for working wood (6)

35 Caught fire or set fire to (7) 36 A Scottish church (4)

37 Insect that feeds on and nests in pine and other evergreen trees in North America (6,6) 38 A Latin epic poem written by Virgil, telling the legendary story of a Trojan hero who became the ancestor of the Romans (6)

Down

1 A list of books or other material on a subject (12) 2 Harry –––, character in Thomas Hughes’s novel Tom Brown’s

School Days (8)

3 A port in South West Norway, the second-largest city in the country (6)

4 A card game for four in which the two sides try to win the balance of 13 tricks (5)

5 An apparatus for maintaining a constant low temperature (8)

6 A dry, hot desert basin in East California and West Nevada (5,6)

7 The principal cook in a restaurant (4)

8 The group of outlaws who follow Robin Hood in English folklore (5,3) 9 A raised platform used by speakers (4)

17 In cricket, a run not scored from the bat, such as a wide, no-ball or bye (5)

18 A sea channel between North East Australia and South

New Guinea (6,6)

19 Novices who work for a skilled or qualified person in order to learn a trade or profession (11) 21 A throat condition, usually occurring in children, characterised by a hoarse cough and laboured breathing (5)

24 Plant of the Delphinium genus, with spikes of blue, pink or white irregular, spurred flowers (8) 26 A surrounding, adjacent or nearby area (8)

27 See 10 Across

30 See 14 Across

31 Man of –––, nickname of DC Comics superhero Superman (5)

33 A member of a Native American people of North East Arizona (4) 34 Stead or place (4)