What are the nuances of the British expression "gone" used with time, as in "gone 8" or "gone midnight"?

An expression I have run across in British novels is "gone [hour]" like this:

"It was gone midnight, and the house was quiet." The Midnight Witch by Paula Brackston

"It's only just gone eight o'clock, Hugo, and Maria hasn't brought our tea yet." Caribbean Sunset with a Yellow Parrot by Andrea Frazer

I suspected from context that this means sometime past that hour, generally where I might say "after eight" or "past midnight", which is confirmed in this (closed) post. I appreciated the detail that it isn't used for planning purposes.

I am still wondering about some of the nuances of usage. This question has resisted my attempts at regular research, with most searches turning up pages of meanings for "gone" or "o'clock" but nothing much useful for the full idiom (except for the above-linked question here). I actually asked a cabbie about this when I was in England for a few days last year, but he wasn't sure. (It's surprisingly difficult to strike up conversations about English usage with random Londoners, at least for me.) I also haven't figured out a good way to express or look for the idiom generally, since there are at least fourteen common formulations (gone one, gone two, gone noon, etc.) and "gone" by itself is obviously not useful. So:

1. Is there a limit on how long after the hour you could use "gone"? (I know this is not likely precise, I'm just wondering approximately how it would be understood by those who use the idiom.) For example, if it's 8:50 could you still say "gone eight"? (In comparison, I think I would probably only use "after eight" until 8:29; after that I would say "eight-thirty" or "after eight-thirty" or "almost nine" etc.)

   How much does the addition of "just" narrow down the window?

   Does this depend on hour in question? For example, in the first sentence above are we to infer that the time was sometime between midnight and 1am (or 12:30 or whatever the appropriate cut-off is), or is it less specific, meaning generally late at night?

2. My guess is that this expression comes from something like "midnight had come and gone"--does anyone know any more about its origins than that?
3. Are there any situations besides the hours of the day that this usage of gone would be appropriate? For example, "she's gone fourteen weeks pregnant" or "my baby is gone eleven weeks old" or "it was gone summer by the time the plantings were ready"?

Many thanks for any insight, and my apologies if this question is unduly fine-drawn. Obviously, I've been wondering about this a lot!

Solution 1:

The Collins English Dictionary simply defines "gone" in this context as meaning "past". The two are essentially equivalent.

The use of "gone" emphasises that the time is after the one specified, without saying how long after. How long after isn't really important, it's the being after that matters. It's not really possible to pin it down more than that without a specific context.

"Just gone" is still a bit vague, but suggests only a few minutes after the specified time. In this case, the emphasis is on the time difference being small.

Solution 2:

Gone is used to say, usually imprecisely, that a particular time is now in the past (usually by a matter of minutes/hours).

"It's gone 8 o'clock" means simply that it is now after/past 8.

If it is still a moment within a few minutes of 8 then you would say "It's just gone 8".

It can easily be invested with an elegiac and regretful sense. Absurdly and memorably sent up here.