Crocodile Conundrum

While looking for information about speakers for the 2025 ATOM Festival of Science & Technology I came across a 'Conundrum Bonus Puzzle' from science author Brian Clegg. As a lover of puzzles, I couldn't resist trying to solve it. The article below details how I found the solution, so I've refrained from posting it until the challenge closed. Here's the riddle, the two accompanying clues and a link to the original post;

Passing under the seventh Duke, take the date of the crocodile, add the psalm number and divide by the verse to get the answer.

Hint 1: This is based on a walk through of a famous location.

Hint 2: Think 'Magnum opera'.

Up for a challenge? Take on the Conundrum bonus puzzle

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW! If you want to try and solve the riddle yourself don’t read any further!

According to Wikipedia, there are currently 30 dukes in the peerages of Britain and Ireland, most of which have surpassed their 7th holder. The wording "Passing under the seventh Duke" seems to indicate the object in question is something like a bridge, or possibly a statue under whose gaze you might pass. This doesn't narrow things down very much.

Luckily (and somewhat unfortunate that it was so quickly), my next bit of Googling led me to a site that gave me almost everything I needed to solve the riddle: "7th duke" "crocodile". That search lead me to a lovely site of 'Plaques and notices in Cambridge' and from there it was mostly just a case of calculating the number required. Here are the relevant pieces from the page (bold for emphasis);

If you walk down Free School Lane, there are university buildings on one side. This site used to be called the Old Cavendish, but is now called the New Museums Site to avoid confusion with the new Cavendish Laboratory in West Cambridge. The Cavendish Laboratory was called after after William Cavendish, 7th Duke of Devonshire, who was Chancellor of the University and donated money for the construction of the laboratory. The Cavendish Laboratory has had many famous physicists. As of 2006, 29 Cavendish researchers have won Nobel Prizes.

The door of the Old Cavendish has this, from Psalm 111, "Magna opera domini exquisita in omnes voluntates eius" which can be translated as "Great are the works of the Lord. They are sought out by all who delight in them."

The others are inside the New Museum site. The plaque about B D Josephson next to the crocodile!

People from Cambridge love to point out that their graduates have won more nobel prizes than those from Oxford (124 to 73!). Having 29 nobel winners from a single laboratory is astounding! According to the Wikipedia page, they've even added another since that page was written.

Finding the building on Google Maps shows that there is a passageway, which would allow us to pass “under the seventh Duke”.

Walking through the passage way leads to The Mond Building, which has a large crocodile carved into the outer wall! Apparently 'The Crocodile' was a nickname for Ernest Rutherford, "either because of [the] fear of having [your] head bitten off by him, or because his voice could be relied upon to precede his visits, just like the crocodile's alarm clock in Peter Pan".

That gives us a Duke, a crocodile and a psalm. We now only need to work out what the date of the crocodile is, and which verse is being referred to.

The Mond Building was completed in 1933 and finding Psalm 111 on Wikipedia, we can see that verse 2 bears a striking resemblance to the section of the Psalm appearing on the door to the Old Cavendish above;

The works of the LORD are great, Sought out of all them that have delight therein.

In which case: (the date of the crocodile + the psalm number) / the verse gives us (1933 + 111) / 2 = 1022.

This was a fun little riddle, it was a shame that it was (mostly) solved by a single Google search. If you know of any similar puzzles or riddles, please let me know!