The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word ILLYRIA
I've seen this crossword clue in Independent
I
L
L
Y
R
I
A
More clues leading to the result ILLYRIA
- Off-colour and casual about old Balkan area
- Ancient place not well ventilated, on reflection
- Don’t start stupid song about Shakespeare’s country
- Old place one’s going to – spacious on reflection
- Dicky rejected spacious European area of old
- Ancient region, adversely breezy to the north
- Heading from highland, look over ancient territory
- I’m going to breezy westward Adriatic region
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Old place" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case old place = illyria.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.