NavList:

Hi Dave_P

> using just the photograph and Google Maps, what is the prominent feature called?

I think it is "Roseberry Topping", I recognise it from a video I once saw, which may have been about James Cook growing up in that area.

> Where might the photograph have been taken from (position not website)?

Going by the rocky outcrop in the photo (which may have been a quarry) I make it somewhere near:

54.48907 N , 1.09077 W , although the Google Map imagery is very blurry around this area.

> What direction was the photographer looking in?

Taking a "line" between the coordinates of the above "quarry" and just to the left of the houses (which is in line with the setting sun) I make it an azimuth of 306.9° TRUE. 

> Is that a sea horizon?

I think it is a "sea horizon" either side of "Roseberry Topping", but NOT in the direction of the setting Sun.

>  Is it dawn or dusk?

Dusk, the sun is West of North.

> What season is it?

Summer.

> What is the very approximate date and time of day?

Probably within a month of the Summer Solstice, and so probably about 9:30pm in the evening.

> Finally, for a bonus point, what is the name of the lane the row of white houses on the left are in.

I'm not sure what the Lane is SOUTH of the houses (it's not clear on the map), but they are near "Dikes Lane", at the back of the houses it is "Gribdale Ter".

>  Clue: There is an 18^th Century Navigation connection within a few miles of this area.

This would probably be Captain Cook's Monument

Where I live, I feel somewhat connected to James Cook, because it was he who made the first accurate map of New Zealand, which is amazingly accurate when overlaid on a current map. He made a few mistakes though, where I live there are two large extinct volcanoes to the East that James Cook thought was an island, so he named it "Bank's Island". There was poor weather at the time, and James Cook did not want to go closer to the coast. Infact the volcano prominence is connected to the South Island, and so is now called "Bank's Peninsula". 

Geoff Hitchcox, Christchurch, New Zealand.