A CHRISTMAS QUIZ 2020

DO YOU REALLY KNOW YOUR ?

1. Why was the cross at Charing Cross originally erected?

2. Who was woken at and told that she was the Queen and what was the date of this event

3. When George III acquired Buckingham House, what was the house usually called during his reign?

4. From what royal palace, did Queen Elizabeth I conduct the defence of against the Spanish Armada?

5. Who, on 30th January 1649, stepped out of a window of the Banqueting House to his death?

6. What catastrophe started in Farriner’s Baking house on 2nd September 1666?

7. What was the event on 20th June 1834, which J M W Turner depicted?

8. Why did St. Paul’s Cathedral almost suffer the same fate in December 1940, as its predecessor had suffered

9. When the Pantheon, designed by James Wyatt, was burnt down in January 1792, what particularly astonished the spectators, who came to look at the scene on the following day? . 10. In 1698 the Palace of was burnt to the ground apart from one major building. What was the building?

11 Originally the Great Western Railway was planned to terminate at Euston and share the terminus with the London and Birmingham Railway. Why did Brunel, the chief engineer for the GWR, object to this?

12. Victoria Station was built for two different railway companies. What was the name of these companies?

13. Where and in what year was the first escalator built on the Underground?

14. What marked the entrance to Euston, when it was first built?

15. In Frith’s painting the Railway Station, what incident is happening on the right side of the painting? (The Painting is of the newly built Paddington Station.)

16. What was the original home of the before it moved to ?

17. Who paid for the building of the Gallery (now )?

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18. Why was the Wallace Collection given that name?

19. What was the building, which houses , before it became an art gallery/

20. In which building was the Royal Academy in, immediately before it moved to Burlington House?

21. In what is now the Greater London area, there were two bridges across The Thames in the , one was London Bridge. What was the other one?

22. In the 18th century London’s second bridge was built across The Thames. What was its name?

23. When was Railway Bridge built?

24. What was London’s first suspension bridge?

25. When was Bridge (on the Chertsey Road) built?

26. .Why in 1710 did St. Alfege Church, Greenwich have to be rebuilt?

27. St. Paul, Deptford and St. John’s Smith Square were designed by Thomas Archer. Under what Act of Parliament were these two churches built?

28. What do St. Martin-in-the-Fields and St. Mary-le-Strand have in common?

29. Where can you see the Great Model for the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Cathedral?

30. Who designed the two towers of ?

31. .Did 221B really exist?

32.. Who was the Home Secretary, who watched the siege of Sidney Street taking place?

33. The premises of Hoare & Co, one of the last independents banks, are in . When did they move there?

34. Who was the last commoner, whose body lay in state in Westminster Hall and in what year?

35. Where can one now see an equestrian statue of Charles I designed by Hubert le Sueur in about 1633?

© John Moses

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