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Gitto, offering every assistance under the sun, short of actual help, here’s an oblique nudge: you can’t drive on this Northamptonshire highway!

I'm not sure I like this puzzle - it's turned a weakness into a strength for the endgame because the grid construction isn't strong enough to support any highlighting. Even searching for the groups isn't strictly necessary, because there's only one possible candidate for the box (I think...). It's a series of winks and nudges from start to finish.

All done, although some of the parsing still escapes me (eg 16d) and 37a had me embarrassingly down a Marvel rabbit hole for far too long).

Gitto, 44a is probably your best route into the second location. Don’t worry overmuch about “parks” while pondering.

Yes Drxx, it’s definitely possible to work out which one is left over without hunting in the grid. I did enjoy this except for finding the jumbled names, where I got in a mess trying to separate them so there were no touching cell edges. I’m glad highlighting wasn’t required, even though I don’t submit solutions.

It was a relief that what on first glance looked like the theme wasn’t, after all!

I am assuming contiguous means that the cells share a side. That is worrying me as I cannot fit the required number of names in that way, whichever way I try I always have two cells only touching at a corner. I could give up as I assume the missing name is 6 letters, the last 5 being common to another name in the grid - the very name that is giving me the above problem.

Drxx and Loge, for me the outcome of the additional down letters was conclusive about the third place - and the additional significance of the title in the light of that. I confess I skipped the jumbled names stage.

I am not over the moon about my solution. Firstly, I haven't a clue on the second location and secondly I can satisfy the preamble by using 39 letters (the first letter from the longest name missing) but not 40. WIKI lists my version, but to get the longer version produces my non-contiguous cell.

To tie up a couple of loose ends:

Can anyone please help me parse 8d? I have the first 7 letters as an anagram (over) of a first name minus the first letter (after heading). That leaves the last two letter, plus the superfluous letter (which I have), to mean ‘bar’? Or is my reasoning completely wrong?

For anyone who’s bothered to find the groups in the grid: I can’t make the 40-letter version work without the extra letter touching a T from one of the others, which seems to go against the instructions slightly. Still unambiguous without having to find the, though, as has been mentioned.

Gitto, I had the same problem with two cells only touching at the corner. I’m not convinced with but as we don’t have to highlight, I’m not too fussed.

Gitto - I’ve just posted the same thing at the same time re. the extra letter. I think we’re right, which is a bit sloppy, although might be missing something.

For the second location: if you have the first and the third, and the ‘link’ from the diagonal, the a quick look at a suitable map should give you the second, to reverse-engineer.