London Alphabeticals No 2 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Abbey Road

The studios at 3 Abbey Road, NW8 are said to be the oldest purpose-built recording studios in the world, and were opened in 1928 by Sir Edward Elgar. Thousands of musicians have recorded all kinds of music there, but of course it is best known as the venue for the Beatles' 1969 album.

The road is so called because it runs close to the site of the former Kilburn Abbey (more correctly called Kilburn Priory).

Answer: Bloomsbury

Bloomsbury is mentioned in Domesday Book as having vineyards and enough woodland for a hundred pigs. It was developed by the Earls of Southampton and the Dukes of Bedford. In the 1750s Montague House was bought by the government with funds raised by a public lottery, and became the British Museum.

In the 1820s University College was founded in Gower Street. These institutions probably helped to popularize Bloomsbury as a place for intellectuals, artists and writers to live. It is best remembered as the home of the twentieth-century "Bloomsbury Group", who "lived in squares and loved in triangles", and who included Leonard and Virginia Woolf, Clive and Vanessa Bell, John Maynard Keynes, Lytton Strachey and Duncan Grant.

Answer: Covent Garden

The land in this area once belonged to Westminster Abbey, and the central part was a walled "convent garden". After the Dissolution of the Monasteries it was granted to the Earl of Bedford. The 4th Earl built extensively on the estate. He hired Inigo Jones to design an Italian-style square or "piazza" in the old garden, which became a very fashionable place to live. Before long, however, the aristocracy moved westward to Mayfair and St James's, and the area round the Garden became a notorious red-light district.

The market began with the grant of a charter to the fifth Earl of Bedford in 1670. It remained there until 1972, when it was moved out of the centre to Nine Elms, Battersea. The present Opera House dates from 1858, but has been extended since then: it is the home of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet.

Answer: Dickens House Museum

Charles Dickens lived for less than three years in Doughty Street, but in that time he finished "Pickwick Papers," wrote "Oliver Twist" and "Nicholas Nickleby" and began "Barnaby Rudge." The museum contains manuscripts, letters, first editions, and some of Dickens's furniture, including the desk that he used for his famous public readings.

Answer: Elephant and Castle

An elephant with a castle on its back is the main feature of the arms of the Cutlers' Company of the City of London. Such a sign still hangs outside the company's livery hall in Warwick Lane, just round the corner from St Paul's Cathedral, and this is probably the origin of the pub sign, which is also found elsewhere in London and the UK.

Some people, however, prefer to derive it from the "Infanta of Castile." The original Elephant & Castle on this site was a blacksmith's forge which was converted to a pub around 1760.

It was a terminus for coaches and later for trams. The area was heavily bombed during World War II. The roundabout was redeveloped in the early 1960s and is widely regarded as one of the ugliest achievements of that period.

Answer: Fortnum and Mason

William Fortnum was a footman to Queen Anne; Hugh Mason was already a shopkeeper when he met Fortnum. Fortnum's acquaintance with Court life enabled the pair to cater to the tastes of the aristocracy, and they soon prospered. By the mid-19th century their successors were supplying foods to many of London's gentlemen's clubs. To families visiting the Great Exhibition of 1851 they sold hampers of ready-prepared food, starting the tradition of the "Fortnum's hamper." Today, they're on the web, so you can order Assam tea at £10 a quarter-pound or Beluga caviar at £70 an ounce without leaving your desk.

Answer: Greenwich

Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, built Bella Court (which became Greenwich Palace) in 1427, and in 1433 enclosed the 200 acres of adjacent land which are now Greenwich Park. The Palace was a favourite residence of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, but fell out of favour with later monarchs.

The Royal Naval College now stands on its site. In the Park are the National Maritime Museum, the Queen's House (designed by Inigo Jones for Anne of Denmark), the Old Royal Observatory and the Ranger's House. Besides these historic buildings, Greenwich has some good pubs and shops.

Answer: Harrow

The first mention of Harrow is found in a charter of King Offa of Mercia in 767. St Mary's Church has its origins in the 11th century. The King's Head pub is said to stand on the site of a hunting lodge used by King Henry VIII. Harrow School was founded by John Lyon, a wealthy local landowner, in 1572. Old Harrovians (i.e. alumni of the school) include Lord Byron, Robert Peel, Anthony Trollope, Winston Churchill, King Hussein of Jordan, and Jawaharlal Nehru.

Answer: Dogs

The origin of the name is not known. In the Middle Ages the area was known as Stepney Marsh. The earliest mention of the name is on a map of 1588. Some people say that Tudor monarchs kennelled their hunting dogs here, but there seems to be no hard evidence of this. "The Isle of Dogs" as the title of a satirical play produced in London in 1597: it was declared to be seditious and Ben Jonson (one of the authors) was jailed. Alas, the text of the play is lost.

Answer: Jermyn Street

Jermyn Street takes its name from Henry Jermyn, Earl of St Albans, to whom Charles II granted the land in 1661. Gentlemen who have their suits made in Savile Row will probably buy most of their other clothes and accessories here. It is particularly rich in shirtmakers: if you grow tired of getting shirts from Turnbull and Asser (who make for the Prince of Wales), you can take your custom along the street to New and Lingwood (who supply Eton College) or Hawes and Curtis or Harvie and Hudson or Thomas Pink or Lewins.

There is also Paxton & Whitefield's wonderful cheese shop at No 93.

Answer: Kenwood House

Kenwood as it is today is the work of Robert Adam, who remodelled it in the 1760s for William Murray (later Earl of Mansfield and Lord Chief Justice of England). Lord Iveagh, of the Guinness brewing dynasty, bought the house in the 1920s and installed his private picture collection, bequeathing the house and pictures to the nation on his death.

More recently the Suffolk Collection of portraits was moved here from the Ranger's House at Greenwich. Painters and sculptors whose work can be seen at Kenwood include Lely, Hals, Rembrandt (a self-portrait), Vermeer (The Guitar Player), Reynolds, Gainsborough, Turner, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth.

Answer: Lincoln's Inn Fields

Lincoln's Inn Fields occupies 12 acres (4.8 hectares). Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court where practising barristers have their chambers and where aspiring advocates learn their trade, is on the east side. In the middle of the north side is Sir John Soane's Museum, which contains William Hogarth's "The Election" and "The Rake's Progress."

Answer: Mayfair

From the 1680s until the mid-18th century a fair was held here for the first two weeks in May. Building began around what is now Piccadilly Circus in the mid-17th century. Sir Thomas Grosvenor was fortunate enough in 1677 to marry Mary Davies, the heiress to about 100 acres of land in the area.

The development of this land has played a large part in making Sir Thomas's descendant (the Duke of Westminster) one of the richest men in the UK. Bond Street, running right through Mayfair from north to south, retains its cachet for luxury shopping.

Answer: Notting Hill

Development in Notting Hill began around 1830. From the beginning it was an area of stark contrasts, with well-built town houses and slums in close proximity. It was one of the areas favoured by Caribbean immigrants, especially from the smaller islands, from the 1950s onwards.

The first Caribbean-style street carnival was held in 1965 (though there had been indoor events since 1959). The carnival became the biggest event of its kind in Europe, but in 2003 attendances fell markedly and it is said that the Zurich street parade attracted more visitors.

Answer: Olympia

Olympia is a venue for all kinds of shows, ranging from graduate recruitment fairs to the National Cat Club Show. For me, its main attraction is the Great British Beer Festival, held in early August each year.

Answer: Pall Mall

"Pallamaglio" was a game something like croquet, which originated in Italy and reached England via France and Scotland. The street was laid out on an old pall-mall alley in 1661. Down to the early nineteenth century it was a street of aristocratic mansions. Today it is a street of offices and some shops, and also the home of some of London's most famous clubs, including the Reform, the Travellers' and the Athenaeum.

Answer: The Queen Vic

The Queen Vic(toria) is not surprisingly a pretty common pub name in the UK, and so are the Queen's Head and Queen's Arms. So far as I know, there is only one Queen's Elm in London: it stands in Fulham Road, close to a spot where Queen Elizabeth I is said to have sheltered from a storm under an elm tree.

Answer: Red House

The Red House was built in 1859 for William Morris, one of the leading figures in the nineteenth-century "arts and crafts" movement. It is a Gothic-style red-brick building, and Morris filled it with appropriate paintings and furniture. In 2003 it was acquired by the National Trust, and can be visited on guided tours (but you must book in advance). Most of Morris's original furniture is now in museums, but some of it is till in situ: restorers have also uncovered an original wall-painting which may be by Lizzie Siddall, the wife of Dante Gabriel Rossetti.

Answer: Soho

The name is said to come from an old hunting cry, which would be heard here before the area was built over in the seventeenth century. From the beginning, its inhabitants seem to have included a good number of European immigrants, notably (in the early days) French Huguenots: there is still a French Protestant church in Soho Square. Today it is widely associated with the sex industry in all its forms; but it still has some excellent restaurants and food shops. Try Camisa and Pâtisserie Valérie (both in Old Compton Street) for Italian cheeses and French pastries respectively.

Answer: Twickenham

The Twickenham ground is home to the England national side and to Harlequins FC. It was opened in October 1909 with a match between Harlequins and Richmond. The first international was held in January 1910, when England beat Wales for the first time in twelve years.

Answer: Upton Park

West Ham United began life as the Thames Ironworks Football Club in 1895. They played at Upton Park from 1904 until 2016, when they moved to the London Stadium (originally built for the 2012 Olympic Games). Strictly speaking, the ground was called the Boleyn Ground, after a building which used to stand near by and which was popularly known in the neighbourhood as Anne Boleyn's Castle, though there was no evidence to link it with Henry VIII's queen.

Answer: Vauxhall Bridge

The Vauxhall area gets its name from Falkes de Breauté, who built a house there in the reign of King John. Falkes' Hall was spelled in various ways in succeeding centuries: the form Vauxhall seems to have become settled in the early eighteenth century. Vauxhall Gardens opened about 1660 and were among the most popular pleasure gardens in London in the eighteenth century, but disappeared in the 1850s. The first bridge at Vauxhall was opened in 1816: it was the first iron bridge over the Thames in London.

Answer: Westminster Hall

Westminster Hall was one of the few parts of the old Palace of Westminster to survive the fire of 1834. It was incorporated into the design for the new Houses of Parliament. The Hall goes back to the days of William II, but most of what we see today (including the magnificent hammerbeam roof) is the work of Henry Yevele, carried out for Richard II towards the end of the fourteenth century.

The building has served various purposes, but from the thirteenth to the late nineteenth century it was best known as the seat of the highest English courts. Among the people condemned to death here were Thomas More, Guy Fawkes and King Charles I.

Answer: Exeter Hall

Exeter Hall was opened in 1831 on the site of what had once been Exeter House (the London home of the Burleigh family). Its large main hall could seat some 3,000 people. It was used for the gigantic choral concerts in which Victorians delighted, and also for mass meetings of bodies including the Anti-Slavery Society and the Temperance Society. For fifty years or so "Exeter Hall" conveyed the idea of nonconformist evangelism.

In 1880 it was taken over by the YMCA. It was demolished in 1907.

Answer: YMCA

The Young Men's Christian Association was founded in 1844 by George Williams, a Somerset farmer's son who had come to London to learn the drapery trade. From small beginnings as a prayer and Bible-study group it rapidly expanded into educational and recreational work. By 1855 there were about 40 branches throughout the UK, and a parallel organization had been set up in the USA in 1851.

The World Alliance of YMCAs can trace its origins to a meeting in Paris in 1855. Today's Central YMCA in Great Russell Street is well known for its fitness courses.