Test your knowledge of London and Christmas with this challenging quiz.
For those who love London, Christmas and trivia, The London On the Ground London Christmas quiz has 25 questions on both London and Christmas.
If you would like to enter - for the pure fun of it - please email your answers before 6pm UK time on 1 January 2023 to londonontheground@gmail.com, with "Quiz Answers" in the subject line. Please let me know your name and where you live, as I know London On The Ground has readers in many towns and countries in addition to London.
If you are going to enter, I trust you not to look up the answers on the internet (pub quiz rules apply!
I will do my best to publish the answers and announce the winner in a post on this blog on 2 January.
Update: the answers to the quiz questions can be found here.
Of course, you can also just try the quiz without sending in your answers.
Please subscribe (for free) via the form at the bottom of this page to ensure that you receive email updates on walking tour schedules and blog posts (including the answers to the quiz).
On the festive theme, places are available for 'A Christmas Carol in the City of London', a walking tour on 28 December 2022 at 2.30pm.
For more details on this walk and to see a schedule of forthcoming London On The Ground guided walks, please click here.
And now, here it is:
The London On The Ground London Christmas Quiz
1) From which country is the Trafalgar Square Christmas Tree an annual gift to the UK?
2) What event took place in Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066?
3) Which band, formed at University College London in 1997, had a top 20 UK hit in 2010 with the single Christmas Lights, which includes the line "I took my feet to Oxford Street"?
4) In which part of London does Bob Cratchit live in Charles Dickens' story A Christmas Carol?
5) Which London sweet maker is credited with creating the first Christmas cracker in 1847?
6) Which singer, who has had two albums in the UK all time top 40, was born in Kensington on Christmas Day 1971 and is named after the founder of an ancient North African city?
7) Christmas lights on Oxford Street made their first appearance in 1959. In which year did Regent Street first have Christmas lights?
8) How many people were in the longest ever Christmas cracker pulling chain, achieved in Barnes at The Harrodian School on 10 December 2015? (a) 581, (b) 1,081, (c) 3,081
9) Which Christmas-themed film of 1992 featured puppets created in London?
10) Which King of England was one of the first people in England known to have eaten turkey for Christmas?
11) In which lake do swimmers compete for 'The Peter Pan Cup' on Christmas morning?
12) What was commissioned by Sir Henry Cole, civil servant & founding director of the V&A, in London in 1843?
13) In which year did the London Underground last operate on Christmas Day?
14) Which London-born and bred actor and comic performer invented many pantomime jokes in the early 19th century that we still know today? (Oh, yes he did!)
15) Which US-born creator of a famous London department store is credited with the catchphrase "Only xx shopping days until Christmas"
16) Born in Hammersmith Christmas Day 1984, which actor has a father and a spouse who both played the Doctor in TV's Doctor Who?
17) Which family, shown in London's the Illustrated London News in 1848, helped to popularise Christmas Trees in the UK?
18) In which season did a London football club last win England's Premier League title without having been top of the table at Christmas? Which club?
19) Which three London Underground stations include a saint in their name?
20) The River Thames often used to ice over for long enough to support fairs on its frozen surface. When was the last 'frost fair' held? (a) 1683 (b) 1739, (c) 1814.
21) Which actor is now playing his 15th pantomime season at the Hackney Empire as the pantomime Dame?
22) Born in 1889 in south London, which actor and film maker died on Christmas Day in 1977?
23) In one of the oldest theatrical traditions still observed, what has taken place on Twelfth Night (6 January) at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane since 1795?
24) What was removed from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in 1950, 654 years after being taken there?
25) As a New Year's Resolution, which Londoner made "a solemn oath about abstaining from plays and wine" in December 1661?
As mentioned above, I will publish the answers on 2 January. Don't forget to subscribe via the form at the bottom of the page to ensure that you receive that and other blog posts by email.
A very Merry Christmas - however you celebrate it - and a very Happy New Year to all readers of the London On The Ground blog and all of you who have joined one of my walks in 2022.
Update: the answers to the above questions can be found here.
To book your place on 'A Christmas Carol in the City of London', a walking tour on 28 December 2022 at 2.30pm, please click here.
