Major Highways of Britain: The A30, Part 2 Quiz

Answer: James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth

James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, was the eldest illegitimate son of King Charles II and a staunch Protestant. He held numerous high-profile public offices, for example Chancellor of Cambridge University, Master of the Horse and the Lord Lieutenancy of Staffordshire, and he also commanded various armies in continental wars with considerable success.

Owing to his growing popularity he felt obliged to go into exile in 1679, but when his father died in 1685 he returned to England with a small army with a view to deposing King James II and VII, who had converted to Roman Catholicism. Advancing through the West Country towards Bristol, when he reached Chard one of his officers proclaimed him King of England, but despite attracting much local support his men - some of them armed only with pitchforks - were no match for the regular army soldiers. Four weeks after landing his army attempted an ambitious night attack upon King James's army at Westonzoyland (now known as the Battle of Sedgemoor); this effort failed and Monmouth's men were defeated. Many were shot while hiding in ditches and others were summarily hung.

Monmouth escape the debacle, but was captured a few days later in Hampshire, taken to London and executed (clumsily) a week later. King James took fearful retribution for this rebellion, commissioning Judge Jeffreys to conduct what became known as the "Bloody Assizes". Nearly 1,400 people were found guilty of treason, of which about 250 were executed, mainly by the awful method of hanging, drawing and quartering - in fact twelve men were executed in Chard in this very way. Many other convicted rebels were sentenced to transportation and indentured servitude in the West Indies. Despite this, King James occupied the throne for only three more years before he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688.

Looking at the three incorrect answer options, General Monck was instrumental in the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, but by the time of the events described herein he was dead. Richard Cromwell, the son of Oliver Cromwell, was at that time living in exile in Europe, but he returned to England the next year and led a quiet and secluded life in Hertfordshire. He died at the age of 85 years, 9 months and 8 days, and was the longest-lived British head of state for three centuries until Queen Elizabeth II displaced him at 85 years, 9 months and 9 days in January 2012. Finally Archibald Campbell, 9th Earl of Argyll, tried to organise a rebellion in Scotland at the same time as Monmouth's in England, but his army dwindled from 2,000 men to just five and he was eventually captured and executed.

Answer: Lace

From the 14th century onwards a number of waves of Flemish immigrants to England brought, inter alia, their weaving and textile manufacturing skills with them. They settled not only in the flourishing Lancashire and Yorkshire textile towns but also in out-of-the way places like Norwich, Colchester, Sandwich, Braintree and Honiton. As well as cloth, gloves and other textile goods, one of their main products was lace - especially in Honiton.

The hand-made lace produced in Honiton was of extremely high quality, to the extent that Queen Victoria had her wedding dress made of Honiton lace. There is a wonderful museum in the town, the Allhallows Museum of Lace and Local Antiquities, and it's said that it has one of the most comprehensive collections of Honiton lace in the world.

Looking at the three incorrect answer options, honey is probably made in the area and cider definitely is - in the late 1960s rough cider was a shilling a pint in most of the pubs in Exeter! Neither of these industries, however, were introduced by the Flemish weavers. As far as otters are concerned, Honiton stands on the River Otter which at one time supported a fair-sized population of these lovely animals. Fortunately, however, they are now protected. As for beavers, some person or persons unknown recently reintroduced beavers to the River Otter without telling anyone - they just suddenly appeared, set up home and are now breeding!

I've bad memories of getting stuck on the Honiton by-pass while trying to get to hitchhike to London, sometimes having to wait hours for a lift. On one occasion a couple of men in a car offered me a lift to Taunton - we hadn't gone more than five miles when we were stopped by the police because the car was stolen! I had to do a lot of explaining to the boys in blue but they eventually let me go.

Answer: Brazil

In 1914 Exeter City accepted an offer from the Argentine FA to tour the country, so a party of 15 players with the club's Chairman and two Directors with their spouses set off in May for the three-week sea cruise to South America. Between 14 June and 12 July they played eight matches in Argentina, including one against an Argentina national side.

Travelling on to Rio de Janeiro, City played three more matches, including a two - nil defeat on 21 July 1914 at Fluminense FC's ground to a selection of Brazilian players from Rio and São Paulo; this is now considered to be the Brazil national team's first ever game.

In 2014 City made a return trip to Brazil to play a number of fixtures to celebrate the centennial of Brazil's first international match. Fluminense FC is now regarded as a partner club.

While I was a student at Exeter I lived for a time more-or-less next door to the Exeter City ground so I used to go and watch them a lot. I particularly remember their two excellent strikers, Alan Banks and Fred Binney, and I also remember cheering Southend on to a two - one victory there in front of a crowd of about 12,500. Happy days!

Answer: Bill Douglas

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is a museum and research facility at the University of Exeter. It opened in 1997 and houses a large collections of books, prints, artifacts and ephemera relating to the history of cinema, much of it collected by Douglas himself.

Douglas is renowned for his trilogy of films about his upbringing in Scotland: "My Childhood" (1972), "My Ain Folk" (1973) and "My Way Home" (1978). These are harrowing films, documenting the brutality and deprivation in which he'd been raised and which he'd struggled to escape. The films gained critical acclaim but made little money; Douglas was only ever to make one more film, "Comrades" (1986), a film about the Tolpuddle Martyrs. However he taught for many years at the National Film and Television School, where his input was said to be inspirational.

Answer: Jamaica Inn

Daphne du Maurier stayed at the Jamaica Inn in 1930 and was inspired by the area to write an historical novel named after the pub. It's a romantic story of ship wreckers, murder and a corrupt vicar, but it has a happy ending.

I'm afraid it's really not my type of book at all, but it sold very well and was very popular. Alfred Hitchcock filmed it in 1939 with Charles Laughton and Maureen O'Hara in the starring roles, There have also been three TV series and over ten radio adaptations.

Looking at the incorrect answer options, all three are in fact genuine pub names: the Bunch of Carrots is in Hereford, the Nobody Inn is at Doddiscombsleigh near Exeter, and the Drunken Duck is in Ambleside in Cumbria.

Answer: China clay (kaolin)

Owing to its geology Cornwall has been the source of many minerals over the centuries. As more traditional materials became exhausted in the 19th century attention shifted to the quarrying of china clay (kaolinite or kaolin), a white silicate mineral formed from decaying feldspar in granite deposits and important in many industrial processes including the production of fine porcelain.

In the early 19th century it was thought that the china clay deposits in Cornwall were the largest in the world. By the middle of the 19th century 65,000 tons of china clay were being mined in the St Austell area every year by about 7,000 workers, and by 1910 the county was producing half of the world's output. It is now estimated that about 100 years' supply is left.

However the spoil heaps and tips of white sand generated by the quarrying and refining of the mineral led to the complete devastation of the landscape in the area. The spoil heaps extend for miles and are mostly biologically sterile. Perhaps the only good thing to have come out of the debris is the Eden Project which is built in a reclaimed china clay pit.

Answer: St Michael's Mount

St Michael's Mount is the island in Mount's Bay, off Marazion. It's actually a tidal island, connected to the mainland by a causeway that's usable only at low tide. It is, of course, similar to Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, and it was in fact a priory of that abbey until Henry V's time.

The island changed hands a number of times during the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War, but in 1659 it was sold to a Colonel John St Aubyn. As of 2024 his descendants, the Lords St Levan, still live on the island, although it's now owned by the National Trust after the 3rd Baron St Levan gave it to the Trust in 1954.

Approaching from the east there's a wonderful view over Mount's Bay with St Michael's Mount very prominent in the middle distance - it really took my breath away the first time I saw it!

Looking at the three incorrect answer options, Lundy is an island off the coast of North Devon, Tresco is one of the Scillies, and Burgh Island (another tidal island) is off the coast of South Devon at Bigbury-on-Sea. The latter island is notable for its wonderful Art Deco hotel.

Answer: Tin

The rocks of the Cornish peninsula are rich in minerals, particularly tin, although copper, arsenic, silver and zinc are also present. The deposits come from mineral-rich rocks that came up through the granite mass of the Cornish bedrock.

It's thought that cassiterite, the main ore of tin, was found in the region in the Bronze Age - bronze is an alloy of tin and copper, and this alloy was being made in Cornwall in about 2,000 BCE. The extraction of tin first took place by collection of the ore from river gravel and cliffs, but in the 16th century actual mining by shaft construction commenced.

Mining expanded through the years reaching its maximum in the 19th century, and it's thought that the industry had around 600 steam engines working to pump water out the mines. However foreign competition forced the price of copper and tin down to a level that made the mining of Cornish ore unprofitable.

As with china clay there has been recent talk about reopening the tin mines - in fact in 1968 I had a clerical job at Consolidated Goldfields Ltd and the company was examining the idea of purchasing a tin mine in the area. However these ideas tend not to come to fruition.

Answer: St Mary's

The Isles of Scilly (or the Scillies - never the Scilly Isles or Scilly Islands) are 36 miles by sea from Penzance; ferries go every day from Penzance Harbour to Hugh Town harbour on the island of St Mary's.

The Scillies are staggeringly beautiful, over 140 islands - five inhabited - grouped around a large, shallow central lagoon, the Road. The archipelago resembles a submerged Dartmoor; there are all sorts of prehistoric remains and the wildlife is out of this world - birds and seals everywhere. The North Atlantic Current keeps the islands warm during winter (hence the botanical gardens on Tresco) and keeps the water limpidly clear - except during the gales that come from the west!

In September 1970 I had the great fortune to spend two weeks on the Scillies on a marine biology field course from university. It was utter paradise, going out on open boats to uninhabited islands to look at the plentiful marine wildlife. Between them the islands have every beach type there is, from muddy through sandy to rocky, and consequently the wildlife is very varied and utterly fascinating. And just being on an island was great - the song "Montego Bay" by Bobby Bloom had just come out and it seemed so totally appropriate that we all used to sing it as we travelled around on the boats.

Answer: 284 miles

The 284 miles from Hounslow to Land's End is a drive of about five-and-a-half hours. The fastest train from London Paddington to Penzance takes about five and a quarter hours.