How well do you know Dorset's landscape, history, places and people? Test your knowledge with this challenging Easter quiz set by our walks writer and Dorset expert Edward Griffiths
1 Captain Lewis Tregonwell built the first house in Bournemouth in 1812. It now forms part of which hotel?
2 Who was the pioneer vaccinator against smallpox who lived at Upbury Farm, Yetminster?
3 For which of her novels did Jane Austen use The Cobb at Lyme Regis as a location?
4 When is Dorset Day and which saint’s feast day does it mark?
5 Henry VIII’s Portland Castle was one of two fortresses protecting Portland Harbour. What is the one on the Weymouth side called?
6 Who painted The Last Supper in St Mary’s, Weymouth as well as the interior of St Paul’s dome in London?
7 Robert Louis Stevenson moved to Westbourne in 1885. What did he name his house?
8 What is the name of the highest cliff top on the south coast?
9 ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore’ - is said to be about a famous former resident of Lyme Regis – can you name her?
10 To which saint are hill-top chapels above Abbotsbury and Milton abbeys dedicated?
11 Where is the only bathing beach on the Isle of Portland?
12 Where is Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley’s family vault?
13 What house in Dorchester has a plaque to ‘John Hicks Architect’ where Thomas Hardy was a pupil?
14 Where will you find the frontage of London’s old Mercers’ Hall?
15 What Dorset dialect poet wrote ‘Rabin Hill’s Visit to the Railway. What he Zeed and Done and What he Zed about it’?
16 Where was Robert Baden-Powell’s first camp for 20 boys held in 1907?
17 What church has clear-glass windows engraved by Lawrence Whistler?
18 Dorset’s highest village has a 70-metre-wide dew-pond at its centre - what is the name of the village?
19 What Roman Road runs north from Badbury Rings to Old Sarum?
20 What is the name of the Christchurch mill fed by the River Avon millstream?
21 Which hill-fort is the highest point in Dorset?
22 What is the smallest church in Dorset?
23 Which Norman church on a Saxon site has animal and human carvings, some rather risqué, that feature on the corbels outside?
24 Moved to Cheap Street, what is Sherborne’s 16th-century monks ‘washroom’ called?
25 Which town is Thomas Hardy’s ‘Anglebury’?
Answers:
1 Royal Exeter Hotel
2 Benjamin Jesty (1736 – 1816)
3 Persuasion (1817)
4 June 1st - the feast day of Saint Wite
5 Sandsfoot Castle
6 Sir James Thornhill (1675 – 1734)
7 Skerryvore, after the Scottish lighthouse designed by his family’s firm
8 Golden Cap at 191 metres
9 Mary Anning (1799 – 1847), the first professional fossil collector
10 Saint Catherine
11 Church Ope Cove
12 St Peter’s churchyard, Bournemouth
13 39 South Street
14 Swanage Town Hall, High Street
15 Robert Young (1811 –1908)
16 Brownsea Island, Poole Harbour
17 St Nicholas’ Church, Moreton
18 Ashmore
19 Ackling Dyke
20 Place Mill
21 Pilsdon Pen at 277 metres
22 St Edwold’s Church, Stockwood
23 St Nicholas’ Church, Studland
24 The Conduit
25 Wareham
