Churchy NW town originally advertised in sprawling italics (14)
I believe the answer is:
ecclesiastical
'churchy' is the definition.
Both the answer and definition are adjectives.
Perhaps you can see a link between them that I can't see?
'nw town originally advertised in sprawling italics' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite understand how this works, but
'town' could be 'eccles' (I have seen 'northern town' mean 'eccles' so perhaps 'town' could also mean 'eccles') and 'eccles' is located in the answer.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for ecclesiastical that I've seen before include "Clergy's" , "Belonging to the church" , "Of the church or clergy" , "Relating to the Christian church" .)