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It is thistle

The other 7s that cross it are

The Old antiquarian which is a name - 3 letters for a tree and then an animal which lives underground

The other is the cuts vibrating clue- 4letters for rush, followed by what you do in snooker

elenchi in NE corner

The one you have left think Opera

Thanks, djawhufc. Finished!

Hi all. This one has me licked. After a long run I was obviously getting too cocky. Not quite enough cosecutive answers to decipher the full message and even with the hints on here I cant get much further. Most of NW and SE quadrant is filled in (though I have a 6 letter word that appears to begin EO_P___ and there is nothing appearing in Chambers.I can see Elenchi but cannot parse it. Is the poisoned jockey a partial anagram of poisoned? Is Sincere the definition for the next clue? Help please

I managed to do this through many leaps of faith on a copy of the grid, looking for words that would fit and then seeing if there were clue to match them.

Mullingar, the EO word is in Chambers. It's two Latin words, the first being just EO.
You are right about the partial anagram of poisoned.
Elchi = ambassador.

Mullingar - Further to Orson - Sincere is the Def (Fine bloke + horse minus equal)

This week's offering was made more difficult by the inclusion of a couple of real names that entailed looking beyond Chambers for a solution. A challenge, but everything fits well eventually!

Thank you Orson and crates. Limped over the line eventually. Very little given away cheaply here i thought. Without the nudges i reckon the bear would have eaten me!

Finished but probably would not have got there without a hint or two from this forum. Still 100% this year. The most difficult so far in my opinion. Can't see the name from the circled letters though.

Smithsax the name is a place, not a person. I think the preamble should say when there are any proper nouns not in Chambers.

Ah thanks. As a Yorkshireman living in Birmingham I (clearly mistakenly) thought I had already crossed over.