Land some distance from police HQ (8,4)
I believe the answer is:
scotland yard
'police hq' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'land some distance' is the wordplay.
'land some' becomes 'scotland' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'distance' becomes 'yard' (I've seen this before).
'scotland'+'yard'='SCOTLAND YARD'
'from' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for scotland yard that I've seen before include "Former police HQ" , "(New) office for the Met" , "detectives" , "Metropolitan Police HQ" , "11 13 HQ" .)