Major Highways of Britain: The A4 Quiz

Answer: The Savoy

The Savoy Hotel was built in 1889 by Richard D'Oyly Carte upon land between the Strand and the River Thames. This land was previously occupied by the Strand Palace, built in 1263 by Count Peter of Savoy; he was the uncle of Eleanor of Provence, queen-consort of Henry III in 1236. D'Oyly Carte had amassed a fortune from his productions of Gilbert and Sullivan operas, and he spent much of this on building the Savoy. It was first hotel in Britain with electric lights and electric lifts throughout, and most of the 250 bedrooms were en-suite with constant hot and cold running water. Auguste Escoffier was appointed head chef; while in post he created both the pêche Melba and Melba toast in honour of the Australian singer Nellie Melba.
Famous guests have included The Beatles, Charlie Chaplin, Babe Ruth, Harry Truman, Laurence Olivier, Marilyn Monroe, Humphrey Bogart, Elizabeth Taylor, Barbra Streisand and Bob Dylan; the latter filmed the video for "Subterranean Homesick Blues" in an adjacent alley.
The incorrect answer options are all luxury hotels in the Mayfair district of west London. I took my wife for afternoon tea at the Ritz on the occasion of her 70th birthday - it was totally luxurious and also surprisingly friendly!

Answer: True

The game of pall mall was introduced from Scotland and France by James I in the early 1600's; the game is a bit like croquet, and the name is derived from the Italian pallamaglio, literally "ball-mallet". The first pall mall court was laid out in the St James's Park area in 1630, and a second followed in 1660; an entry for 2 April 1661 in Samuel Pepys's diary records: "[I] went into St. James's Park, where I saw the Duke of York playing at Pelemele, the first time that I ever saw the sport".

When the area of Pall Mall was developed in the early 1660's a new road was built on the site of the first old pall-mall court, opening in September 1661. It was named Catherine Street after Catherine of Braganza, but soon became better known as Pall Mall Street or the Old Pall Mall. The area is now noted for its fine old houses and its gentlemen's clubs: the Reform, the Athenaeum and the Travellers' Club are based there.

Answer: From the lace collars that were made and sold there

Piccadilly has been a thoroughfare since the medieval period. Around 1611 a tailor named Robert Baker acquired 22 acres of land in the area, enclosed it and built houses and a shop on it. Baker was a maker of piccadills, which were large broad collars of cut-work lace and which were very fashionable in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
In 1663 Piccadilly was then named - like Pall Mall - after Catherine of Braganza, in this case as Portugal Street. However from about 1673 onwards sections became known as Piccadilly, and eventually this became the de facto name for the entire length of Portugal Street. A plan of the area around St James Parish in 1720 describes the road as "Portugal Street aka Piccadilly", and John Rocque's 1746 Map of London refers to the whole street as Piccadilly.
Looking at the incorrect answer options, the relish of chopped pickled vegetables and spices is actually Piccalilli; the other two explanations are of course nonsense.

Answer: The Dukes of Wellington

Apsley House, as it is known, stands upon the site of a tavern called The Hercules Pillars. Built for the Lord Chancellor, Lord Apsley, in 1807 it was purchased by the Anglo-Irish politician and colonial administrator Richard, Lord Wellesley. However he had financial problems so he sold the house on to his younger brother Arthur in 1817. And Arthur Wellesley was of course the Duke of Wellington, who having defeated Napoleon wanted to secure a London residence from which to progress his political career.

The house has been in the family of the Dukes of Wellington ever since; the family live in half the property while the rest is devoted to the Wellington Museum, run by English Heritage. The house was referred to as "Number One, London" because in the early 19th century it was the first house passed by travellers bound for London from the countryside after they had gone through the toll gates at Knightsbridge.

It was originally part of a line of great houses on Piccadilly, many of which were demolished to widen Park Lane after WWII.

Answer: Imperial College

Imperial College is based in South Kensington; about 12,000 undergraduate students and 1,100 postgraduates follow courses mainly in science, engineering, medicine and business. It has a very high rating - it regularly features in lists of the top five best colleges in the UK, with similar high rankings on both a European and world-wide basis.

Distinguished graduates include H. G. Wells, Brian May, Peter Higgs and Thomas Huxley, and about 16 Nobel Prize laureates. And as mentioned, its "University Challenge" teams also tend to do well. By the way, Hogwart's is not an affiliated college of the University of London.

Answer: John Betjeman

Former Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman (1906 - 1984) wrote "Slough" in 1937 as he grieved about the modernisation and industrialisation of England's country towns. Given the events of WWII he sounds somewhat prescient about the events to come, but he never really retracted the tenor of his comments in the poem.

This task was left to his daughter, who after her father's death said that he "regretted having ever written it". During a visit to the town she presented the Mayor of Slough with a book of his poems; in it was written: "We love Slough".

Answer: Biscuits

In 1822 Joseph Huntley had a small baker's shop in London Toad, Reading. The coaches to and from London stopped there regularly, and Huntley would go to the coaching inns to sell his biscuits. Because the biscuits often broke on the coach journey, he started putting them in metal boxes - and the rest is history! Huntly & Palmer's, as the company became, eventually employed 5,000 people and by 1900 were the world's largest biscuit manufacturers, and the decorative biscuit tins found their way all over the world. Later further mergers and take-overs failed to deal with contracting markets, and production at Reading ceased in 1976. And as you might now know, Reading FC are often referred to as "The Biscuit Men" - Nice! (which is coincidentally a type of biscuit invented by Huntly & Palmer's!).

Answer: Greenham Common

The USAF placed the majority of their Cruise missiles at Greenham Common, prompting a furious response. The Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp was set up in September 1981, and demonstrations attracted up to 70,000 women. The missiles were finally removed from the base in 1991 as a result of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, but the camp stayed in place until September 2000.

The base was demolished and turned into a public parkland Common; there are memorials to the camps and a Visitor's Centre in the old control tower.

Answer: Silbury Hill

Silbury Hill is massive, as big as a Pyramid and just as impressive. It was built about 2400 BCE, but as yet the reasons for its construction are unknown; so far a number of excavations have failed to produce any items from within the Hill. The reasons must have been pretty convincing, however, as the building of the mound would have taken about 500 people 15 years.

Looking at the incorrect answer options, Pendle Hill is in Lancashire and has connections with George Fox and the Quakers, Old Sarum Hill is the Roman and early medieval site of Salisbury, and "Solsbury Hill" is a song by Peter Gabriel.

Answer: Eddie Cochran

Eddie Cochran was an American pop star and songwriter, responsible for such classic songs as "Twenty Flight Rock", "Summertime Blues", "C'mon Everybody" and "Somethin' Else". His career really took off in 1958 with the release of "Summertime Blues", and the hits kept coming after that. He spent the first four months of 1960 touring the UK, but on April 16 while driving in a taxi back to London from a gig in Bristol the driver hit a lamppost at speed and Cochran suffered devastating head injuries; he died the next day. Co-passenger Gene Vincent suffered severe leg injuries but survived.

All the incorrect answer options are other rock and pop stars who died in car or bike accidents.

Answer: Pickwick

The small vanished village was Pickwick, and the coachman who was born in Pickwick was called Moses Pickwick. Obviously this was too good a coincidence for Dickens to resist, so he titled his fist novel "The Pickwick Papers".

Answer: Minerva

Minerva was the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice and law, with interests also in the arts, trade, and strategy. She is the equivalent of Athena for the Greeks. Looking at the incorrect answer options, Fortuna was the personification of fortune and was much-worshipped in Roman society. Ceres was the goddess of the harvest and agriculture, as well as being the goddess of fertility. Finally, Vesta was the virgin goddess of the hearth, home, and family.

She was never depicted in anthropomorphic form but was depicted by the fire in her temple in the Forum in Rome.

Answer: "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey"

Nobody really knows what happened to Jane Austen in Bath - she either stopped writing because she was displaced and depressed, or she stopped writing because she was too busy socialising. Two of her novels, "Persuasion" and "Northanger Abbey", had much of their action set in Bath.

Answer: Isambard Kingdom Brunel

The history of the design and building of the Clifton Suspension Bridge is a long and dirty story! Money became available for a bridge in about 1830, and a commission for building the bridge asked for designs. Of the 22 produced by various people, including four by Isambard Kingdom Brunel, only five were deemed acceptable. The commission then called in Thomas Telford to make a final adjudication, but he rejected all of them so the commission offered him the job. Brunel then produced a new design costing £10,000 less than Telford's.
After further complaints a second call for designs was made, and the contract awarded to a Birmingham company. However Brunel met with one of the judges and was then awarded the contract. But just after the celebration for the commencement of the work took place the Bristol Riots delayed the work for five years. Work then restarted, but ran out of money and was paused for many years, by which time Brunel had died. Work restarted in 1862, with a revised design by William Henry Barlow and Sir John Hawkshaw based upon Brunel's original design, and the bridge was completed in 1864.

* A little note about Keynsham: In 1969 the town was featured as the title of the album "Keynsham" by the Bonzo Dog Band. The title was chosen in honour of Horace Batchelor, who had been referred to in previous recordings by the band. In the early 1960's Batchelor became known through his adverts on Radio Luxembourg for his football pools prediction service. When giving his contact address, he would painstakingly spell out 'Keynsham' letter by letter intoning "Keynsham - spelt K-E-Y-N-S-H-A-M - Keynsham, Bristol", and this became a contemporary catchphrase.

Answer: 127 miles

From London to Avonmouth is a 127 mile trip by road on the A4 - a drive of about two-and-a-half hours. The fastest train takes about two hours and ten minutes including changes.