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Hi taittinger - I am a completer-finisher but have to say I didn't really enjoy this one until I could get a few grid entries filled. There are some useful nudges in the thread that may get you started depending on the clues you have solved. Good luck.

I finished this yesterday but wanted to reflect on it for 24 hours before posting. The forum seems quite polarised this week but I think that I'm somewhere in the middle. For me it was a puzzle of two halves.

I found all of the cold-solving to be a bit of a slog and had cracked somewhere between half and three quarters of the clues before I could make any headway with the grid entries. The double-letter cells made it quite complicated to fit together and I ended up using trial and error to slot a few words into various parts of the grid until I found an arrangement that started to look sensible.

After I'd got over that hurdle it was the most fun I've had in ages. The clues fit together neatly, the messages appeared and the endgame was very neat. Thoroughly enjoyable and a phenomenally clever construction by Twin, who is one of my favourite setters.

So as I say, I'm in two minds about this one. It was an absolute joy of a puzzle slightly let down by just a touch too much cold solving at the start.

Belated thanks for the encouraging words, planks. Alas work intervened.
Will press on

Slightly disappointing for me, but only because Twin sets the bar so incredibly high. Thought the gridfill was great. But the endgame was tedious and fiddly with no real payoff.

2 loose ends for me. Can't see the wordplay for 'rural buildings...' or 'elegant shop...'

Thanks

SH, drop the usual abbrev for silver from a word meaning small houses. And in the other, where a lady might have her hair done, foreshortened, wraps round a word for station, as in selling coffee, hot dogs.

Both make sense, thanks quisling

Well! It's been a slog but, with help from hints posted here — thanks to all who contributed — I've finally filled the grid and got the instruction from the letter pairs. Time for a very late brunch before addressing the final stages of the endgame.
I don't know why so many have voiced dissatisfaction with this puzzle. I thought it was tough, but I think I could have cracked it eventually by placing entries on a trial-and-error basis. So, many thanks, Twin, for this cerebral workout.

Just one queries,though.
I have the solution to "Fin went down..." but I just cannot puzzle out the wordplay. Someone help this old codger, please.

I very much enjoyed it to the point you are now jif. Be interesting to see whether you still rate it so highly after the next bit.

A word for went down gradually missing a (and the redundant letter) then a three letter word relating to roe.

jif73 went down graually = sank, take the a away, n is the extra letter, that leaves sk, spot of roe = egg

@jif73 - It’s “went down gradually” minus an A (“dropping a”) and minus the extra letter, then one of the things that mass together to form roe.