St. Paul's Cathedral, London Trivia Quiz

Answer: Sir Christopher Wren

Sir Christopher Wren was a scientist, mathematician and Britain's most famous architect. He took 9 years to plan the building to make sure the design met the requirements of a working cathedral.

Answer: Between 1675 and 1710

Construction commenced in 1675. It took many years of course before it became usable as a place of worship as there were many delays caused by waiting for raw materials and funding. The first service was held in the cathedral in 1697 while the building work continued. It was finally completed in 1710.

Answer: It burnt down in 1666, during the Great Fire of London

The previous St. Paul's Cathedral was started by the Normans in 1087. By the early 1600s it was falling into serious disrepair and restoration was started but then halted by the English Civil War. It was then destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. Four of the gang who tried to assassinate the King in the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605 were executed in St. Paul's Churchyard in 1606.

Answer: Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer

The wedding of Charles and Diana was broadcast around the world and Princess Diana, as she became, was transformed from a shy young lady into an icon of her time until her death in a Paris underpass in 1997.

Answer: Baroness Margaret Thatcher

Baroness Thatcher was the UK's first female Prime Minister. Her father, a grocer, owned two shops in Grantham in the north of England. She earned a degree in Chemistry from Oxford University in 1947, was elected to Parliament in 1959 and became Prime Minister in 1979. Lady Thatcher won 3 general elections and remained Prime Minister until 1990 when she was forced out of office in a leadership struggle.

In her later years she suffered from dementia and died in 2013 aged eighty-seven.

Answer: William the Conqueror

The building was started in or around 1087 by Bishop Maurice, Chaplain to William the Conqueror. It survived for almost 600 years. It was not, however, the first church dedicated to St. Paul on this site. There was an even earlier one founded around 604 AD by Saint Melitus and Saint Erkenwald. The former was a monk who arrived in Britain on a mission from Pope Gregory the Great.

Answer: The Duke of Wellington

Sir Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), 1st Duke of Wellington, defeated Napoleon at
the battle of Waterloo in 1815. In 1828, he resigned as Commander-in-Chief of the British Army and became Prime Minister. In 1829 he was involved in a duel but deliberately shot wide of his opponent who had refused to raise his pistol. His government fell in 1830. Some four years later, when his party was returned to power, he declined to be Prime Minister again and Sir Robert Peel did so instead. He died in 1852 and was buried in St. Paul's but it was not until 60 years later that his monument was completed.

Answer: Lord Horatio Nelson

Horatio Nelson was born in the county of Norfolk, England, in 1758. He came from a moderately wealthy family and joined the navy, rising rapidly through the ranks and getting his first command in 1778. In 1793, he lost his right eye at the Battle of Calvi and in 1797, he was shot and lost his right arm at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

He continued to be a thorn in the side of the French Navy during the war with Napoleon, winning several important naval battles. In 1805, he inflicted a crushing defeat of the French Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar during which he was shot and killed.

His body was returned to England and buried in St. Paul's approximately 10 weeks after his death. His monument, Nelson's Column, can be found in Trafalgar Square, London.

Answer: The Whispering Gallery

If you stand close to the wall and whisper a message, it can be heard quite clearly by somebody on the other side of the gallery some 137 feet away.

Answer: Reader, if you seek his monument, look around you.

The tomb is surrounded by memorials to Sir Christopher Wren and to the masons and other craftsmen who worked on the building of St. Paul's.