London Quiz

How well do you know London? Here are 400 provocative, curious and humorous questions to enlighten and entertain.

Even the most devoted Londoner will learn something new from these fun and wide-ranging trivia questions about London's history, monuments, architecture, famous residents, place-names, notable events, and more. A delightful way to explore the city, this fun book is a perfect stocking filler, with history ranging from obscure lore to facts and fascinating, often humorous histories.

Where is the only cross-eyed statue in London and who does it depict?

a) Next to the Royal Exchange in the City of London; George Peabody, the nineteenth-century American-born philanthropist

b) At the point where Fetter Lane and New Fetter Lane converge; John Wilkes, the eighteenth-century politician

c) Islington Green; Sir Hugh Myddleton, the seventeenth-century entrepreneur

Answer: b) John Wilkes really did have a severe squint, as reproduced in the statue, but despite his looks, he was a legendary and eloquent womanizer who once said that, when meeting an attractive woman, it took him only ten minutes "to talk away his face."

Travis Elborough is an author and social commentator. His books include the four titles in the Unexpected Atlases series - Atlas of Improbable Places, Atlas of the Unexpected, Atlas of Vanishing Places and Atlas of Forgotten Places, together with A Traveller’s Year, A London Year, The Long-Player Goodbye, Being A Writer and A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution. Travis is a regular contributor to Radio 4 and the Guardian, and has penned articles on all aspects of travel and culture, from pirates in the Caribbean to donkeys at the British seaside. He has written for the Times, Sunday Times, New Statesman, BBC History Magazine and Kinfolk among others. Travis was the winner of the Edward Stanford Travel Book Award in 2020.

NICK RENNISON has worked as a writer, editor and bookseller for more than twenty years. His London Blue Plaque Guide has been through three editions in the last decade and he has also published The Book of London Lists, described by the London Evening Standard as a book that 'can teach even the most die-hard Londoner something they didn't know'. He lives in Stockport.