Questions about Sussex
1. In which town is there a house shaped and coloured like a piece of cheese?
2. What’s unusual about the beach at the foot of Fairlight Glen?
3. What do Halnaker, Punnetts Town and Hogs Hill, Icklesham have in common?
4. Which two woods are used in the manufacture of Sussex trug baskets?
5. What did it mean, in Old Sussex’ “to beat the devil about the gooseberry bush”?
6. Which Elizabethan dramatist was born in Rye?
7. Which name is common to two rivers, one in East Sussex, the other in West Sussex?
8. What, weatherwise, did these years have in common for Sussex, 1890, 1927, 1947, 1967,1987?
9. Where will you find Britain’s highest chalk cliffs?
10. What name is commonly given to the low pyramidal roofs which are feature of Sussex country churches?
11. Accapted Frewen, son of a puritan rector, became Archbishop of York in 1660. Where in Sussex did the Frewen family live?
12. What have Waterloo, Commercial Square and Cliffe in common?
13. What will you find on the downs at Lullington Heath, Kingston and Newtimber Hill?
14. In 1519 Sir Henry Guldeford of East Guldeford fought for Spain against the Moors, and was granted a fitting ‘augmentation of honour’ on his family’s coat of arms. Which device was added to it?
15. The original Gipsy Lee was consulted by many famous people among them Mr Gladstone. Where did she keep her caravan?
16. Which is the southernmost railway station north of Brighton at which you can board trains bound for either Brighton or Hastings?
17. Which traditional rural implement had a handle made of ash or hazel and a metal end which was said to be best when fashioned from an old gun barrel?
18. How did Decimus Burton, the man who completed the building of St Leonards, get his first name?
19. The old Nineveh Shipyard building became a sawmill and produced tent pegs for the army during the Boer War. Where is it?
20. Which famous actor has written about his childhood in Sussex, when he lived at the Old Rectory in Lullington?
21. Which perfectly-formed Ardingly schoolboy went on to edit Private Eye magazine?
22. According to the sign post at Skinner’s roundabout how many miles is it to Winchelsea?
23. Of the five original Cinque Ports, which one was the only one in Sussex?
24. Which shop trades at 8, High Street, Rye?
25. Which were the two largest Sussex towns in 1750?
26. Which organisation founded by the science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard has its UK headquarters near East Grinstead?
27. Amberley 1377, Bodiam 1384, Herstmonceux 1440: what do the figures signify?
28. There are only two towns along the whole range of the South Downs. Which are they?
29. Which prestigious Sussex building was designed by the architect Michael Hopkins?
30. What sits at the centre of a Sussex pond pudding?
Answers
1. Hasting, in All Saints Street
2. It’s a designated area for naturists
3. Windmills
4. Sweet chestnut and willow
5. To tell a long and pointless story
6. John Fletcher
7. Rother
8. Heavy snowfall
9. At Beachy Head, 537ft
10. Sussex caps
11. In Northaim
12. They’re three of the five Lewes bonfire societies.
13. Dewponds.
14. A pomegranate.
15. At Devil’s Dyke.
16. Wivelsfield Green.
17. A shepherd’s crook.
18. He was the tenth child of the town’s founder, James Burton
19. At Arundel.
20. Dirk Bogarde.
21. Ian Hislop.
22. 3 miles
23. Hastings, Winchelsea and Rye were added later
24. Adams
25. Lewes and Chichester.
26. The Church of Scientology.
27. The dates when the castles were fortified
28. Arundel and Lewes.
29. The new Glyndebourne opera house
30. The answer is a lemon!
Image Credits: Rye News library .