Prior to emailing the list, I tried several
combinations of
hosts and paths before giving up and just using
deb.debian.org.
Even after your explanation above, I'm unsure how to derive the
correct cached source URL, given that the official backport
instructions don't give a source URL which uses
ftp.uk.debian.org or
backports.debian.org (or any of the other
mirrors listed in the wiki page). Maybe there's an underlying
assumption that a mirror can be used simply by swapping out the
original host name for the mirror, but even if that's the case I
think it should be documented explicitly because it's not
uncommon for mirrors to be hosted at a different URL path to
where they were on the original host.
It's another one of those things that's only documented in a small number
of obscure places, but you can find out what dists are available from a
mirror host by appending debian/dist to the URL and opening it in a web
browser.
For example: