The History of Portsmouth Trivia Quiz

Answer: Fratton

The Domesday Book provides an invaluable insight on life in England in the late 11th century. It was commissioned by King William I (the Conqueror) in order to allow him to identify the value of the majority of the land, buildings and cattle owned by the inhabitants of the relatively newly conquered country and to demand their allegiance to his crown.

Of the various villages and small settlements recorded in the county of Hampshire by the survey, several went on to be subsumed into what is now the city of Portsmouth. Fratton (described as Frodintone in the Domesday Book) had a mention, as did other familiar names such as Buckland, Copnor, Cosham, Drayton and Wymering. Fratton became the home of Portsmouth Football Club in 1898 and the club played their first match at their home stadium, Fratton Park, in the same year.

Eastney, Farlington and Hilsea are (relatively) newer parts of Portsmouth that didn't exist in 1086.

Answer: A Royal Charter

In addition to the market, fair and court, Portsmouth's first Royal Charter also granted its inhabitants exemption from certain national taxation to allow the money to be used to improve local facilities. Although the text of the charter is known, the actual document itself has been lost over the centuries. In 1994 the city hosted a special celebration of its 800 years of history to mark the anniversary of the granting of this charter.

Portsmouth was later granted additional Royal Charters by King John in 1200 (which confirmed the rights previously granted by his late brother) and King Edward II in 1313 - the latter document is the oldest surviving Royal Charter to Portsmouth

The Order of the Garter is a chivalric order established by King Edward III in 1348; Royal Assent is the process by which the monarch approves an Act of Parliament.

Answer: Royal Garrison Church

Domus Dei was not a hospital in the modern sense of the word and had nothing to do with health care as we would know it. It was actually an almshouse and hospice run by a small group of monks and nuns. Almshouses provided accommodation for the poor, while hospices were temporary lodgings for passing travellers. It was established around 1212 under the auspices of the Bishop of Winchester, Peter des Roches. The same bishop was also responsible for founding Titchfield Abbey and Netley Abbey, both of which are located a few miles west of Portsmouth.

The buildings ended up in the hands of King Henry VIII after the Reformation in the mid-16th century. The site was turned into a mansion for a military governor and hosted the wedding of King Charles II in 1662. By 1767 the hospital and its chapel had been restored and renamed as the Royal Garrison Church. The church was heavily damaged by German bombing in the Second World War - the chapel section, which became the chancel of the new church, was the only part that escaped.

Answer: France

The Hundred Years' War between England and France (that actually lasted 116 years) began in 1337, just a year before the French brazenly sailed into Portsmouth and set fire to pretty much everything in sight. The only major buildings to escape destruction were a church and the Domus Dei hospital. The French also conducted widespread looting (of both military and civilian supplies) and those people unable to flee were either killed or captured as slaves. The French fleet was led by an Admiral called Nicolas Béhuchet, who spent the first few years of the war attacking both shipping and other towns along the English Channel coast. He was eventually captured after the Battle of Sluys in 1340 and hanged.

The 14th century was a pretty bad time to be living in Portsmouth; in addition to the 1337 raid, the area was hit by the Black Death in 1349 and the French turned up three more times between 1369 and 1380 to wreak further destruction.

Answer: The town was subjected to Greater Excommunication

Back in the 15th century, bishops were not only members of the clergy, but important supporters of the king and heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the kingdom. The murdered man, Adam Moleyns, was not just the Bishop of Chichester but also the Lord Privy Seal - an important member of the court who was responsible for keeping the monarch's personal seal. He clearly had an active role in the administration of the kingdom as he was sent to Portsmouth to sort out a dispute with soldiers and sailors who had not been paid. However, his political skills must have failed him on that occasion as he was lynched outside the Domus Dei.

The Roman Catholic Church responded to the murder of their bishop by putting the whole of Portsmouth under 'Greater Excommunication'. This effectively meant that all churches in the area were shut and the whole population was deprived of the ability to formally practice their religion - something that would have been a very big deal in medieval times. It took 59 years for the Greater Excommunication to be lifted - any event that only occurred after the people of Portsmouth built a new chapel in order to make amends.

Answer: Mary Rose

Mary Rose was a large wooden sailing ship built for the English navy on the orders of King Henry VIII (or possibly his father Henry VII). It saw many years of successful service and was the flagship of the fleet, but foundered just outside Portsmouth Harbour while fighting the French in 1545. Many theories have been put forward to explain why she apparently just keeled over and sank, but most of the likely ones reflect the fact that she had been heavily modified over the years and was probably top-heavy and unstable.

The Mary Rose 'rose' to fame when it was lifted from the seabed of the Solent in 1982. Despite spending over 400 years underwater, the silt on the seabed had successfully preserved a large portion of both the ship and its contents. It was returned to the dockyard where it had been built, placed in a dry dock and put on display to the general public while it underwent further preservation treatments. A purpose built museum - designed to display both the ship and the thousands of artefacts discovered on board her - was constructed over the dry dock and opened in 2013. In particular, the artefacts give an amazing insight into life onboard a Tudor warship; they include simple items such as sailors' drinking vessels, the contents of the ship's carpenter's cabin, weaponry and ammunition and skeletons of the ship's crew - including a dog.

The incorrect options were all names given to Tudor warships. The Peter Pomegranate was built alongside the Mary Rose at Portsmouth in 1510.

Answer: The Round Tower

The original wooden Round Tower was constructed during the reigns of King Henry V and King Henry VI in the early part of the 15th century. It was one of the earliest formal defensive structures to be built to protect the entrance to the harbour. In the 1490s, King Henry VII ordered its replacement with a stone version, which (somewhat unsurprisingly) lasted longer than the original wooden one and survived into the 21st century. The tower has been heavily modified over the centuries, but still provides great views out to sea and an excellent vantage point for watching the movements of both commercial and naval vessels. In particular it is a noted spot for the families of naval personnel to wave to their loved ones as they head off on deployment or as they return after months away from home.

Fort Nelson is located on Portsdown Hill overlooking the city of Portsmouth, Spitbank Fort is a sea fort located in the Solent and the Spinnaker Tower is a modern landmark completed in 2005.

Answer: Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812, where his father worked as a clerk for the Royal Navy. He and his family left the city in 1815. Dickens's name has since been given to the local government electoral ward that includes the city centre, the Naval Base, the Historic Dockyard and the house where Dickens was born. That building was later acquired by the city council and opened as the Charles Dickens Birthplace Museum, a re-creation of how the Dickens family would have lived at that time. Given the fact that the majority of Dickens's literary work highlighted the poverty and neglect that was rife in 19th century Victorian society, it is somewhat ironic that, in the 21st century, parts of the Charles Dickens ward have been consistently ranked as some of the most deprived areas of Portsmouth.

Arthur Conan Doyle (born in Edinburgh) opened a medical practice in Portsmouth in the 1880s, while H. G. Wells (born in Bromley, Kent) also lived in the city as teenager during the same decade. Rudyard Kipling (born in India) spent his early childhood boarding in Portsmouth in the 1870s.

Answer: HM Naval Base

Air warfare was in its infancy during the First World War, but German Zeppelin airships carried out around 50 bombing raids on England during the course of the war. The attack on Portsmouth in September 1916 was originally intended to target London, but the airship captain decided that weather conditions made an attack on London too risky and he opted for bombing one of Britain's key naval bases instead. Theoretically, an attack on a major military establishment should have been a good strategic alternative for the Germans, however they came under heavy fire from the city's air defences and they failed to cause any damage - the bombs they dropped were presumed to have ended up in the harbour.

Other English cities were not so lucky; in total around 1,400 people were killed in raids by both airships and aeroplanes, many of them civilians. The dockyard at Chatham in Kent was also attacked, resulting in the loss of over 150 naval recruits.

Southsea Castle was an active military installation during both world wars and suffered some minor bomb damage in the second conflict. Portsmouth Guildhall was almost destroyed during the Second World War, but was later rebuilt. The Fratton Park football ground survived both wars intact - although all the main football tournaments were cancelled.

Answer: Battle of Trafalgar

The Battle of Trafalgar took place on October 21st, 1805 and was an important British naval victory against the French and Spanish during the Napoleonic Wars. The fleet was under the command of Admiral Lord Nelson, who was killed in action during the battle. Nelson left England for the last time from Portsmouth on September 14th, 1805 aboard his flagship HMS Victory - Nelson never returned, but Victory spent many years decaying in Portsmouth harbour until she was eventually placed in permanent dry dock at the Historic Dockyard, restored and opened to the public as a tourist attraction.

The 2005 International Fleet Review saw 167 ships line up in the Solent outside Portsmouth harbour to be reviewed by Queen Elizabeth II. Only 57 of the ships belonged to Britain's Royal Navy; 34 other nations, including the US, Russia, France, Germany, Canada and Australia all sent naval vessels to the event. A number of non-naval ships such as Cunard's QE2 liner, various tall ships and even the ferries to the Isle of Wight also took part. The day ended with a mock re-enactment of the events at Trafalgar that included a massive fireworks display to imitate the sights and sounds of the battle.

The Battle of the Nile (1798) and the Battle of Copenhagen (1801) were other famous naval battles won by Nelson. The Battle of Jutland (1916) took place during the First World War.