Where Was I? Sunday Times

[basil24]

Oh dear - the Sunday Times have got it wrong again. They've printed last week's puzzle, but this week's questions.

[scorpiojo]

Are you reading the online version?

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/public/where_was_I/article1620027.ece

[basil24]

Yes - online version.

[scorpiojo]

Give me 10 mins and I'll type it out.

[scorpiojo]

I am exploring the area around the northern reaches of a 78-mile canal, completed in 1790. During the 1830s, 14 miles were chopped off it by straightening some of its meanders; and here are the remains of one. Three miles to its south-west is a hotel, which I mention because it incorporates the remains of a 17th century family home. That, in turn, incorporated a Cistercian abbey, founded in 1150. Well, I muse, the abbey is in there somewhere.
Next stop is a Roman settlement, literally "three-arched bridge". (It's three miles south of a small town where an aeronautical engineer, born in 1907, conducted tests and experiments, notably on the W1X engine.) Peculiarly, it is marked on my map in extremely small print. Why might that be? I soon find out: the amount to be seen appears to be in direct proportion to the print size. Nor is there any sign of the three-arched bridge, though it's hard to miss the Roman road.
Although the canal is now three miles to my south, I head northeast, passing through a small village. It was frequented by a sometime poet laureate, being where he worked on a famous elegy published in 1850. A right turn takes me three miles east, past a fine William and Mary-style house. It is a monument I seek, a tad further east, and by wandering along a bridle way, I find it. It is dedicated to a second aeronautical engineer (born 1867), builder of Hawk. He died when it crashed here in 1899, not far from the second canal. That's still there, winding across the fields, oblivious to man's insatiable quest to soar ever more skywards.
What is the name of the small town?
Who was the second engineer?

[Nevilleauk]

Yes always a cock up with them? I wondered why I could find no mention of an engineer in the text

[basil24]

Thanks scorpiojo.

[scorpiojo]

You're welcome. Good luck.