Having spent the last few years exploring the boundaries of Britain for the ‘I Never Knew That’ series, I can only agree with Tacitus that Britain is glorious, known and unknown – a land so packed with treasure and beauty, so blessed with blissful countryside, hills and hidden valleys, woods and waters, so enhanced with breathtaking and venerable architecture, castles, cathedrals, village churches, palaces, stately mansions, homely cottages of stone and wood, ingenious bridges and tunnels and innovations. Britain is vibrant and alive with the tales and poetry of heroes and lovers and scoundrels, of battles and of peace, of kings and queens, achievements and dreams, every kind of human drama and character.

There is still so much to see and absorb, so many surprises to make one gasp and shake the head with disbelief and wonder and joy, that I cannot claim to know all of Britain, or even most of Britain. There is always so much more of it to discover and that is its great joy; the realisation that it will never fail to delight, will always be a source of new experiences and excitements.

This quiz book is a chance to sum up and revisit what I have learned of Britain so far. I have collected so much knowledge and already forgotten so much, there is need to stop and take a breath. Deciding on the questions and researching the answers has allowed me to summon up many happy memories of pleasurable trips and explorations to all the corners of these islands, and I hope you will find the same pleasure in answering the questions as I had in compiling them.

Enriched and enhanced with Mai Osawa’s sublime and evocative illustrations, this book is designed as a fun and informative way to travel through Britain, to find out what you know of Britain and what you don’t, to refresh the memory, to acquire entertaining new insights and anecdotes and maybe to dazzle friends and family with some remarkable facts about these majestic and beautiful countries. One point for each time someone says, ‘I never knew that!’.

Link to answers

‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’

PROVERB

1. What is Britain’s newest national park?
2. What kind of tree is sometimes known as a May tree?
3. Which Scottish king was born in Turnberry, Ayrshire, or Lochmaben, Dumfriesshire – or possibly Writtle in Essex?
4. Which river does the longest railway tunnel wholly within Britain pass under?
5. A species of what kind of bird takes its name from Northumberland-born illustrator and wood engraver Thomas Bewick?
6. In what county town did Marconi set up the world’s first radio factory?
7. What language was Dolly Pentreath, who died in 1777, the last person known to have spoken?
8. What is the only English county name to contain five consonants in a row?
9. On what island is Holyhead?
10. Where in Scotland is it said to be so windy that ‘when the wind drops everyone falls over’?

Link to answers

‘If a little knowledge is dangerous – where is the man who has so much as to be out of danger?’

THOMAS HUXLEY

1. What is the most westerly cathedral city in Britain?
2. What is unique about British stamps?
3. Who painted a portrait of Winston Churchill which, according to Churchill himself, made him look as if he was ‘straining a stool’?
4. What is the county town of Merioneth?
5. Which television situation comedy was filmed at the manor house in Cricket St Thomas in Somerset?
6. Which fishing port, site of Scotland’s first lighthouse, was founded by Sir Alexander Fraser in 1546?
7. Which home was built for the first Briton to rise from a commoner to a Duke in one generation?
8. On which river does Canterbury stand?
9. Who wrote his seminal work while living at his mother’s house in Kirkcaldy in Fife and observing workers at the local nail factory?
10. What was the first British car to sell a million?

Link to answers

‘There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.’

BERTRAND RUSSELL

1. Hereford claims to be the birthplace of which of Charles II’s mistresses?
2. What is the highest village in Scotland? BONUS QUESTION: And the second highest?
3. Name the English castle where Richard III was born in 1452 and where Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded in 1587?
4. In what town is the Shepherd Neame brewery, the oldest brewery in England?
5. What make of car was the ‘Old Speckled ’Un’, which was built in 1927 and which gave its name to a beer brewed originally in Abingdon, Berkshire?
6. Who designed the Willow Tea Room in Glasgow?
7. Which town do world motor racing champion Lewis Hamilton and thriller writer Ken Follett’s wife Barbara have in common?
8. Which is Britain’s busiest railway station, in terms of trains passing through?
9. Which Scottish county boasts of the Rhins and the Machars?
10. Until the Industrial Revolution what was the largest town in Wales?

Link to answers

‘Try to know everything of something, and something of everything.’

LORD BROUGHAM

1. How was Ursula Sontheil, born in a cave near Knaresborough in 1488, better known?
2. Which cathedral was destroyed by the Wolf of Badenoch?
3. What did William Hillman make in Coventry before he made cars?
4. Which early English philosopher influenced the American Revolution with his philosophy, ‘The ruling body, if it offends against natural law, must be deposed’?
5. How many letters are there in the following name? Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwy rndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

6. Where did the British Cabinet meet for the first time ever outside London, in 1921?

7. What county is known as the ‘county of spires and squires’?
8. Which Welsh castle has the thickest castle walls in the world?
9. Which king led the English to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in 1415?
10. What drink, ‘made in Scotland from girders’, was carted around Falkirk in Stirlingshire in the 1930s by Carnera, ‘the biggest horse in the world’?

Link to answers

‘One cannot know everything.’

HORACE

1. The capital of the US State of Connecticut takes its name from the county town of which British county?
2. What is the most northerly town in the world located on the Prime Meridian?
3. Which Scottish family name comes from the Gaelic for ‘crooked mouth’? BONUS QUESTION: And ‘crooked nose’?
4. Which English county is most associated with well dressing?
5. There are only three cable-hauled street tramways in the world, in San Francisco, Lisbon and which Welsh town?

6. Which legendary highwayman lived as a Yorkshire gentleman called John Palmer?
7. Which cathedral contains the highest bishop’s chair in Christendom?
8. Harry Corbett was nephew to Harry Ramsden, founder of the world’s largest fish and chip shop, and played the piano there – what was the name of his puppet?
9. Who has the same name as a new Scottish city and founded the SAS?
10. Ogof Ffynnon Ddu, which at 1,010 ft (308 m) in depth is Britain’s deepest cave, can be found in which national park?

Link to answers

‘Pocket all your knowledge with your watch and never pull it out in company unless desired.’

LORD CHESTERFIELD

1. Which writer had an unhappy affair with the philosopher Herbert Spencer?
2. What breed of dog was Greyfriars Bobby?
3. What surname is shared by the man who described Oxford as the ‘city of dreaming spires’ and the first English composer to win an Oscar, for the score for Bridge on the River Kwai, in 1957?
4. Which Welsh port has the longest breakwater in Britain?
5. Which comedian was born John Eric Bartholomew and later changed his name to that of the town where he was born in 1926?
6. Which iconic British car went on sale in 1959 for £500?

7. In which year did Red Rum, the most successful horse in the history of the race, achieve the first of his three Grand National victories?
8. Which Queen sank in Hong Kong Harbour in 1975?
9. Which county produces over half of England’s cider?
10. Auchinleck House in Ayrshire is the ancestral home of which 18th-century writer?

Link to answers

‘All men by nature desire to know.’

ARISTOTLE

1. In which British city would you be if you were walking down the Shambles?

2. What name is given to the area a team of oxen can comfortably plough in one morning?
3. Black Bart, born in Pembrokeshire in 1682, was the first pirate known to have flown what?
4. Where would you go to walk along the longest seaside pier in the world?
5. What is Scotland’s National Book Town?
6. What is the most common adjective in the Oxford English Dictionary?
7. Name Scotland’s two Formula One world champions.
8. What is the name of the bell that hangs in the Lloyds underwriting room and used to be rung to announce news of overdue ships – once for bad news and twice for good news?
9. What brand design includes the phrase from the Book of Judges ‘out of the strong came forth sweetness’, and is the oldest unchanged brand design in Britain?
10. In which county would you find the A5114, at less than 2 miles (3 km) long Britain’s shortest A road?

Link to answers

‘I am not young enough to know everything.’

OSCAR WILDE

1. On what island is Talisker whisky made?
2. Which industrial giant grew out of the Cheshire salt mines?
3. What was the first make of car to be manufactured at Longbridge in Birmingham?
4. Which county does the biggest breed of terrier, the Airedale, hail from?
5. Which well-preserved 18th-century ironworks in Monmouthshire is now a World Heritage Site?

6. What was the most popular name for a king of Scotland before the Stewarts?
7. Which Welsh county is the most scarcely populated and has the lowest levels of light pollution in England or Wales?
8. Where did the German High Seas Fleet scuttle itself in 1919?
9. Will Adams, born in Gillingham in 1564, was the first Englishman to reach which country?
10. How many English kings have been called Edward?

Link to answers

Multiple choice

1. Frederick, Prince of Wales, who expired in 1751, was the first man to die as a result of being hit with what?

   1. A cricket ball
   2. A sandwich
   3. A car

2. ‘It is not for glory, nor riches, nor honours that we are fighting, but for freedom …’ Where do these words come from?

   1. Magna Carta
   2. American Declaration of Independence
   3. Declaration of Arbroath

3. Who was the first agricultural labourer to become an MP?

   1. John Prescott
   2. Joseph Arch
   3. George Loveless

4. Which Archbishop of Canterbury negotiated Magna Carta with King John?

   1. Thomas à Becket
   2. Thomas More
   3. Stephen Langton

5. What did Kirkpatrick Macmillan invent at his smithy in the hills of Dumfriesshire?

   1. Printing press
   2. Monkey wrench
   3. Pedal bicycle

6. What is the oldest surviving folk festival in England?

   1. Abbots Bromley Horn Dance
   2. Padstow Hobby Horse
   3. Olney Pancake Race

7. What is the only town that stands right on Offa’s Dyke?

   1. Oswestry
   2. Knighton
   3. Ludlow

8. What is the most commonly used letter in the English language?

   1. E
   2. S
   3. O

9. Who went over to New York to collect Thomas Paine’s bones and bring them back to be buried in Thetford in Norfolk, Paine’s birthplace, only to lose them?

   1. Daniel Defoe
   2. William Cobbett
   3. Dylan Thomas

10. What was the seat of Scotland’s first bishopric, in the 7th century?

    1. Iona
    2. Aberdeen
    3. Abercorn

11. What dockyard was the largest operational flying-boat base in the world during the Second World War?

    1. Portsmouth
    2. Dundee
    3. Pembroke Dock

12. What did William Morris describe as ‘the supremest specimen of all ugliness’?

    1. St Pancras Station
    2. Forth Railway Bridge
    3. Truro Cathedral

13. What is Scotland’s most northerly Munro?

    1. Ben Hope
    2. Ben Nevis
    3. Ben Lomond

14. What body of water does John Ruskin’s home, Brantwood, overlook?

    1. Loch Lomond
    2. Lake Vyrnwy
    3. Coniston Water

15. What did Elizabeth I’s godson Sir John Harington invent?

    1. Gunpowder
    2. Water closet
    3. Ink

16. Who could claim that both grandfathers were members of the Lunar Society?

    1. William Fox-Talbot
    2. Aldous Huxley
    3. Charles Darwin

17. What is the largest medieval gothic cathedral in England?

    1. Lincoln
    2. York Minster
    3. Salisbury

18. Who coined the phrase ‘corridors of power’?

    1. Edmund Burke
    2. George Orwell
    3. C.P. Snow

19. James IV was the last Scottish king to die in battle. At which battle did he die?

    1. Culloden
    2. Prestonpans
    3. Flodden

20. What is the Boston Stump?

    1. A tree
    2. A church tower
    3. A boat

Link to answers

Odd one out