Four British Islands Trivia Quiz

Answer: Anglesey

Being able to remember and pronounce the name of this village is somewhat of a party trick.
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch is the full but seldom used name, and is shown on the long board at the railway station for tourists to photograph.
It lies close to the Menai Strait and is practically the first place you come to when you cross over the bridge into Anglesey. On maps the name is usually shortened to Llanfair Pwllgwyngyll, or Llanfair PG, to distinguish it from several other Llanfairs in Wales.

Answer: Skye

It has to be the Scottish one, obviously. Talisker is a single malt Scotch whisky distilled in Carbost, on the Isle of Skye. Cheers!

Answer: Anglesey

There are two major islands in the Irish Sea, of which the largest by area is Anglesey at 276 square miles. The other, the Isle of Man, has an area of 221 square miles. By population though, the Isle of Man has about 80,000 inhabitants (in 2006) compared with Anglesey's 69,000 (in 2001). These figures do not include seasonal increases due to tourism.

Answer: Man

There is a small island off the south west end of the Isle of Man, across Calf Sound, and it is called the Calf of Man (Manx: Yn Cholloo). Just under a square mile in area, it is run as a wildlife sanctuary by Manx National Heritage. On the island and surrounding rocks are four lighthouses, none currently manned.
Cowes of course is a town on the Isle of Wight.

Answer: Wight

Tennyson Down is a hill at the western end of the Isle of Wight. To walk on this wide grass-covered ridge is sheer delight - in the right weather, obviously, and provided you don't go too near the sheer cliffs on the northern side.
Tennyson himself had a house nearby for nearly 40 years, and frequently walked on the down. He is reputed to have said that the air here was 'worth sixpence a pint', a quotation probably not up to his usual standard!

Answer: Skye

The jagged mass of the Cuillin hills dominate the view of Skye from either land or sea, and they are a favourite with serious fell walkers, and also mountaineers. The Black Cuillins are composed of a mixture of gabbro (a rough igneous rock) and basalt which can be very slippery when wet. The high point is Sguirr Alisdair at
3309 ft.

Answer: Anglesey

The Isle of Wight and the Isle of Man are both only reachable by ferry, and until a few years ago this was also true of Skye, which now has a road bridge. Anglesey however was always a main route to Ireland, but was separated from Wales by the Menai Strait with its treacherous currents. To improve this journey a road bridge was built by the famous engineer Thomas Telford, whose Menai Bridge was the world's first iron suspension bridge, and was the world's biggest suspension bridge when it was opened in 1826.
The railway engineer Robert Stephenson, faced with Parliament's requirement that a fully rigged man-o-war should be able to pass below a new rail bridge, came up with a wrought iron tubular design. Known as the Britannia Bridge, it was completed in 1850. Trains could now run from London to Holyhead on Anglesey, which connected to Dublin by ferry. A fire pretty much destroyed the Brtannia Bridge in 1970, and it has since been redesigned as a more conventional two level bridge.
More recently a new road suspension bridge has further improved access to Anglesey.

Answer: Man

The Isle of Man TT races take place in June each year, and are some of the last classic road racing events. The races, in a number of different classes of motorcycle, are run over public roads (closed temporarily) in a time-trial format. The speeds reached seem incredible considering this is not a race track; the record lap speed for the 37 mile course is over 135 mph, achieved by Peter Hickman on a BMW machine in 2018.

Answer: Wight

The clay locally known as 'blue slipper' sometimes occurs between layers of rock, and when there is sufficient rainfall with drainage into certain areas the land above the blue slipper will fall and slip away toward the sea. An area in the north of the island subject to this problem is known as the "Undercliff", and roads in the area have frequently been cut by landslips.

Answer: Man

The Isle of Man, together with the Channel islands, are Crown Colonies rather than part of the United Kingdom. Residents however are eligible to hold British passports. These islands have independent parliaments, although with limited powers. The UK for instance is responsible for their defence.

Answer: Skye

Skye is the largest of the Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.
The next biggest is Mull. Others nearby include the intriguingly named islands of Rum, Eigg and Muck.

Answer: Man

Douglas, on the Isle of Man, is its biggest town. I was at school there in 1940 when the waterfront hotels were occupied by "enemy aliens", who were either people of German and Italian extraction who had lived in Britain for years, or recent Jewish refugees from Germany, but they were nevertheless feared to be a danger to the war effort and interned on the Isle of Man. Douglas is now a popular tourist town.
The main towns of Anglesey, the Isle of Wight and Skye are Llangefni, Newport, and Portree respectively.

Answer: Wight

The position of the Isle of Wight in the English Channel made it vulnerable to attacks by the French during the Hundred Years War and after.
In July 1545, a French fleet of over 200 ships arrived off the east corner of the island and landed troops who caused much devastation. They were fought by Henry VIII's ships and eventually retreated, although the English navy suffered many losses including the famous "Mary Rose" which capsized and sank in the Solent.
The remarkable exhibition of this ship in Portsmouth Dockyard is well worth visiting by the way.

Answer: Man

The Manx cat is famous for being tailless, although many have short stubs of tails. They also have long back legs and rounded heads, which define them as one of the 42 cat varieties recognised by the American Cat Fanciers Association and the British equivalent. Manx cats are fierce predators and are popular as farm cats and ship's cats.

Answer: Wight

The place is called Osborne House, near East Cowes on the Isle of Wight. An earlier house on the site was rented in the early 1840s by the newly married Queen and consort, but in 1845 they decided to buy the site and build a new house, advised by the master architect and builder Thomas Cubitt.
Osborn House was very much appreciated by Queen Victoria who spent much time there. The Italianate style of the house was the preference of Prince Albert: apparently the view from the gardens across the Solent reminded Prince Albert of the Bay of Naples.