UK

null 22° London Hi 22°C / Lo 13°C

The Great British quiz: How well do you know your country?

Can you tell your sports stadia from your stately homes? Reckon you’re an expert on everything from Dickens and Shakespeare to pork pies and potted shrimps? Enter our quiz – and win a fabulous hamper from Fortnum & Mason

Compiled by John Walsh, Rob Sharp, Christopher Hirst, Simon Usborne, Guy Adams, Susie Rushton, Chris Maume and Foisol al-Ali
Monday, 5 May 2008

Round 1: Reel life

1 Where were the final scenes of Robin Hardy's The Wicker Man shot?

2 What location was used as Mr Darcy's home in the 2005 film of Pride and Prejudice?

3 Down which street did Ewan McGregor pelt in the opening scene of Danny Boyle's Trainspotting?

4 Where was the village policed by Simon Pegg and Nick Frost in Hot Fuzz?

5 Around the quadrangle of which Cambridge college did the actors of Chariots of Fire run?

6 At which British stately home was the concert at the beginning of The Madness of King George filmed?

7 Where was Omar's house located in My Beautiful Laundrette?

8 Where was the gang's hang-out in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels?

9 Where was the Tallis familhome located in Joe Wright's Atonement?

10 Which castle, on what island, did Keith and Candace Marie visit in Mike Leigh's Nuts in May?

11 Where was the climax of 28 Days Later filmed?

12 What is the location of the (revealing) final scene of The Full Monty?

13 Which Oxford College is used as Hogwarts Hall in the Harry Potter films?

14 Where is Maid Marion's home in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves?

15 Where is the cottage in which Uncle Monty reels off his famous line "I'll have you, even if it must be burglary!" in Withnail and I?

Round 2: National appetites

1 Which Norwich family made its fortune by what people left on their plates?

2 Thick seam, honeycomb and blanket are all types of what northern delicacy?

3 Blue cheese from Stilton, pork pies from Melton Mowbray, cakes from Banbury. Which is the odd one out?

4 Once called Cornish "fair maids" (from the Spanish, fumado, smoked), they are now sold as "Cornish Sardines" by supermarkets, while a salted version known as salacche inglesi (salted Englishmen) is prized in Italy. What are they?

5 Which condiment made close to the Severn utilises anchovies, a fish rarely, if ever, found in that river? And why?

6 What fish was consumed by Victorian grandees at celebratory suppers in the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich?

7 In Devon, the preference is for the jam to go on top of the clotted cream. In Cornwall, the strata are reversed. But what do these ingredients appear upon?

8 What foodstuffs are associated with: a) Cromer; b) Maldon; c) West Mersea; d) Tiptree?

9 Bath chaps and Lincolnshire chine: what animal supplies the essential ingredient?

10 Champ and colcannon are excellent mashed potato dishes from Ireland – but what's the difference?

11 Which football team is known as: a) the Biscuitmen; b) the Trotters; c) the Shrimpers?

12 What are Cornish pine, Norfolk beefing, and Yorkshire aromatic?

13 "I told Carrie that if _______ were placed on the table again I would walk out of the house." What comestible aroused Mr Pooter's ire when it reappeared in The Laurels, Holloway?

14 Whitstable oyster; Dungeness crab; Cornish hen. What's the odd one out?

15 What do Yorkshire folk traditionally have with their Yorkshire pudding?

Round 3: Brit-lit

1 The name of which city forms the single-word first sentence that opens Bleak House by Charles Dickens?

2 Inside which ancient monument is Tess of the D'Urbervilles arrested?

3 In which Yorkshire seaside town does Count Dracula disembark from a ship in the shape of a wolf?

4 On what man-made structure is the French Lieutenant's Woman first seen by Charles Smithson in the eponymous 1969 novel by John Fowles?

5 According to TS Eliot, the walls of which church in the City of London hold "Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold"?

6 What is the exact location of "The Worst Toilet In Scotland" in Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting?

7 What connects a sporting fixture in the film of Goldfinger with a famous poem of 1751, written in a churchyard?

8 What's the connection between The End of the Affair and the address of its author, Graham Greene, in 1940?

9 What's the (surprisingly suburban) town in which the Martians land in The War of the Worlds by HG Wells?

10 Virginia Woolf, as a girl, went on summer holidays to St Ives, Cornwall. But where is the lighthouse in the novel To the Lighthouse?

11 In The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg, at which tourist spot does George Colwan see a hideous apparition of his brother Robert?

12 What's the name and location of the inn where Sophia Western discovers Tom Jones in bed with Mrs Waters in Tom Jones?

13 What's the location of Baskerville Hall in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes tale The Hound of the Baskervilles?

14 Beside which famous south-coast strand do Edward and Florence fail to consummate their union in 1962, with disastrous consequences?

15 What is the name and location of the pub where Bob the barman falls for the prostitute Jenny in Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky?

Round 4: Made in Britain

Here's where they were born – but who are the people we are talking about?

1 This Belfast boy famously converted Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy into a Hollywood series.

2 Born in Wimbledon, this hairy wrestler often acted like he'd had one too many.

3 Despite getting into a pickle in London, he has a towering reputation – and his foundations are in Stockport.

4 Toy boys, male models, other women – over the pond, Widnes's best-known blonde pretends to have bedded them all.

5 First weighing into the world in West Ham, this is one hard-hitting part-time chess player.

6 Born in Belgravia, this 6ft 5in star tends to hammer home his terrifying talent.

7 Always a buzz about her, many colourful things have been written about, and on, this Southgate-born crooner.

8 England expects, he once said, but his mother was expecting in the Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe.

9 Underneath it all, this man of questionable manners isn't only an M&S customer, but a Leeds lad, too.

10 Born in Tresco but a Somerset man, he opened with a banger and he liked to eat them, too.

11 A supreme poser, this child of Addiscombe, Surrey, survived scandal to make a none-too-slight fortune.

12 A real number, this bossy Greenwich-born redhead cut her sister out of her life.

13 One of Tintwistle's famous daughters once dressed only in a figleaf, with nothing else to to protect her honour(s).

14 Long before she started swindling, this tasty canary-fancier was born in Woking, in Surrey.

15 Rather childish he may have been, but Greenock's seafaring bairn was rich pickings for storytellers.

Round 5 (picture round - click on link below): Homes or castles?

Click here to identify these stately homes.

Round 6 (picture round - click on link below): Beast of Britannica

Click here to identify these native fauna.

Round 7 (picture round - click on link below): Britain in tune

What locations feature on the covers of these iconic British albums?

Round 8 (picture round - click on the links within each question): Questions of sport

1 This is what happens here for 50 weeks of the year. What happens the other fortnight?

2 Football heroes all – but outside which stadia are they standing?

3 This atmospheric old place may have seen better days, but it's still the spiritual home of its sport. What is it?

4 This clock, famously, forever shows six minutes past three. Where is it?

5 World Championships have been held here since 1985. Where, and in what sport?

6 This grand old haunt was under threat for a while, but now it's refurbished and still one of the domestic centrepieces of its sport. What and where is it?

7 Many a great name has come to grief on this little stretch of peril.

8 The world's oldest sporting museum with quite a nice stadium attached. Where?

9 Come on, it's obvious.

10 The country's most famous horse, he's buried at the winning post here . What, and where?

Round 9: Location quotations

Answer the questions in bold...

1 "...This guest of summer,/The temple-haunting martlet, does approve/By his loved mansionry that the heaven's breath/Smells wooingly here: no jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coign of vantage, but this bird/Hath made his pendant bed and procreant cradle." Which lovely dwelling is this?

2 BOSWELL. "Is not the XXXXX worth seeing?" JOHNSON. "Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see." What is XXXXX?

3 "The steam, hissed. Someone cleared his throat./No one left and no-one came/On the bare platform. What I saw/

Was XXXX – only the name," Which station is XXXX?

4 "The week before Christmas, when the snow seemed to lie thickest, was the moment for carol-singing; and when I think back to those nights it is to the crunch of snow and to the lights of the lanterns on it. Carol-singing in my village was a special tithe for the boys, the girls had little to do with it. Like hay-making, blackberrying, stone-clearing and wishing-people-a-happy-Easter, it was one of our seasonal perks." Where do we find this idyllic village?

5 "This City now doth like a garment wear/The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,/Ships, towers, domes, theatres and temples lie/Open unto the fields and to the sky:/All bright and glittering in the smokeless air." Where is the poet standing?

6 "You will hear more good things on the outside of stagecoach from London to XXXX than if you were to passed a twelvemonth with the undergraduates, or heads of colleges, of that famous university." What town was William Hazlitt was so dismissive about?

7 "One morning early I met armoured cars/In convoy, warbling along on powerful tyres,/All camouflaged with broken alder branches,/And headphoned soldiers standing up in turrets./How long were they approaching down my roads/As if they owned them?" Where in the UK is this? And who is the poet?

8 "Time could not mar the perfect symmetry of those walls. Moonlight can play odd tricks upon the fancy, and suddenly it seemed to me that light came from the windows. And then a cloud came upon the moon and hovered an instant like a dark hand before a face. The illusion went with it. I looked upon a desolate shell, with no whisper of a past about its staring walls. We can never go back to M-- again. That much is certain. But sometimes, in my dreams, I do go back to the strange days of my life which began for me in the south of France..." What's the house, and in which county can its original be found?

9 "The first view of XXXX in fine weather does not answer my expectations; I think I see more distinctly in the rain. The sun was got behind everything, and the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown was all vapour, shadow, smoke, and confusion." What Spa town is Jane Austen writing about?

10 "...all the delights of the Gardens; the hundred thousand extra lamps, which were always lighted; the fiddlers in cocked hats, who played ravishing melodies under the gilded cockle-shell in the midst of the gardens; the singers, both of comic and sentimental ballads, who charmed the ears there; the country dances, formed by bouncing cockneys and cockneyesses, and executed amidst jumping, thumping, and laughter; the signal which announced that Madame Saqui was about to mount skyward on a slack-rope ascending to the stars..." What is William Thackeray describing?

Round 10: Strange rituals

1 On 1 May each year, the young residents of which city gather at a famous bridge at dawn to listen to the Hymnus Eucharisticus, before jumping into the river and continuing the celebrations at one of the many bars and pubs that open at 6am?

2 What London landmark is a rallying point, once a month, for an en-masse cycling event which empowers the pedal-pushers to force motorists to give way?

3 The Dickens Festival in late May and early June commences with an invitation-only ball and Dickensian street entertainment. But in which English town, which was also appeared in The Pickwick Papers and Great Expectations, does the festival take place?

4 Regarded as one of Britain's largest outdoor events, which city will this year celebrate the 30th anniversary of its hot-air balloon festival?

5 The Gregorian calendar places the Celtic New Year in which month?

6 Which London area, known for art galleries, outlandish hairstyles and trendy restaurants, is home to Britain's main annual urban golfing event?

7 This Dumfries festival has its origins in a court that resolved disputes between neighbours. During the week-long festivities, the crowning of the Queen of the South takes place. What is its name?

8 In which Dorset town, population of just 415, does an annual cider festival take place?

9 Next weekend, London's Brick Lane will host Europe's largest Asian open-air festival, the Baishakhi Mela, with an estimated 200,000 visitors. What event does it celebrate?

10 In which Cambridgeshire town is Plough Monday, the first Monday after Twelfth Night, celebrated by a local dressed up as a bear made of straw, who parades around the town accompanied by a host of dancers and musicians?

11 A thousand years after the Vikings invaded Scotland, the people of which islands remember the Vikings with a fire festival and torchlight procession – thought to be Europe's biggest?

12 Which Gloucestershire town holds an annual event where competitors chase (yet rarely catch) a block of cheese that can hit speeds of more than 70mph?

13 The English Olympick Games is a 400-year-old tradition that consists of sledgehammer-throwing, pike-drill-tumbling and shin-kicking. Participants have been known to wear steel toecaps to aid their cause, and to injure their opponents. Where are the games held?

14 The Highland Games, which celebrates both Scottish and Gaelic culture, are famed for the caber-toss, stone-put and sheaf-toss have their origins dating back to the 11th century. Where in Scotland does this event take place?

15 This annual event, said to have originated in the 17th century, involves people racing through the streets carrying flaming wooden barrels of burning tar on their backs. What is it – and where does it take place?

How to enter & win Great British food

When you have completed all 10 categories, email your answers to comps@independent.co.uk. All entries must be received by Friday, 16 May.

The reader whose entry contains the most correct answers will win a fantastic Kensington summer hamper from Britain's best-known luxury food supplier, Fortnum & Mason, worth more than £300. It contains an array of fine wines, biscuits, chocolates and preserves. Ten runners-up will receive a Fortnum & Mason ceramic Stilton jar, full of delicious organic Cropwell Bishop Stilton.

In the event of a tie, winners will be chosen at random from the highest-scoring entries. The judges' decision is final, and a full copy of the terms and conditions is at www.independent.co.uk/legal.

All entrants must be over 18.

Interesting? Click here to explore further

Most popular

Day In a Page

Sun | Mon | Tue | Wed | Thu | Fri | Sat

Select date