Q 01/05

Which county, containing the whole of Dartmoor, is the only one in England with two separate coastlines?

A) Cornwall

B) Devon

C) Somerset

D) Kent

Answer · why

B) Devon

Devon straddles a peninsula, so its north shore meets the Celtic Sea while its south shore looks across to France. No other English county touches two...

Q 02/05

On which county's coast at Happisburgh were the oldest known human footprints outside Africa uncovered in 2013?

A) Kent

B) Essex

C) Norfolk

D) Lincolnshire

Answer · why

C) Norfolk

Norfolk's eroding cliffs exposed footprints some 850,000 to 950,000 years old, pressed into estuary mud by early humans. Results announced in February...

Q 03/05

The name Avon, shared by the waterways at Stratford, Bath and Salisbury, comes from a Brittonic word meaning what?

A) Valley

B) Water

C) Crossing

D) River

Answer · why

D) River

River Avon literally means 'river river', because Avon descends from the Brittonic abona, which survives as the Welsh afon. Several English and Scotti...

Q 04/05

The ending shared by Manchester, Winchester and Chester derives from castra, the Latin word for what?

A) A military camp

B) A market town

C) A river crossing

D) A sacred grove

Answer · why

A) A military camp

A military camp of the legions became 'ceaster' to the Anglo-Saxons, which is why -chester, -caster and -cester towns sit on Roman sites. Lancaster an...

Q 05/05

Place names ending in -by, such as Grimsby and Whitby, record villages founded by which people?

A) Roman legionaries

B) Norse settlers

C) Norman barons

D) Saxon monks

Answer · why

B) Norse settlers

Norse settlers brought 'by', their word for a village, and the ending clusters across the Danelaw of northern and eastern England. Endings in -thorp m...