Historic Hastings

15 Points Per Correct Answer - No time limit  

1. There is no evidence of a town on the site of Hastings before Saxon times, but the Romans were active in the area. What natural resource attracted the Romans? gold slate coal iron

2. Which English king was killed at the Battle of Hastings in 1066? Ethelred II (the Unready) Harold II Edward the Confessor Canute

3. In the Middle Ages Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich enjoyed certain privileges from the Crown in return for providing ships and men for the defence of the Channel coast. What name was given to these towns? The Five Towns The Cinque Ports The Channel Ports The Saxon Shore Ports

4. Hastings was incorporated as a borough in 1588. What important event in English history took place in that year? the Gunpowder Plot the death of Queen Elizabeth I the defeat of the Spanish Armada the outbreak of the English Civil War

5. In the reign of Charles II, the son of a Hastings clergyman played a major part in denouncing alleged “Popish plots” against the King. What was his name? Israel Tonge William Bedloe Edmund Berry Godfrey Titus Oates

6. In the 1820s a prosperous London builder called James Burton began building a new seaside resort to the west of Hastings in order to attract rich and fashionable visitors and residents. What was the new resort called? Bexhill Normans Bay Eastbourne St Leonards

7. Hastings is the venue for an annual international competition, held around the New Year, in which indoor game? bridge Scrabble darts chess

8. Robert Tressell wrote a novel of working-class life in the early twentieth century, based on his own experience as a house-painter in Hastings. What is the novel called? Love on the Dole The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists Tales of Mean Streets People of the Abyss

9. A Scottish inventor lived in Hastings for a short time in the 1920s, and did some work there on his most famous invention. Who was he and what was his invention? Robert Watson-Watt (radar) John Logie Baird (television) John Haldane (gas mask) John Boyd Dunlop (pneumatic tyre)

10. Priory Meadow, a shopping precinct in the centre of the town, was formerly a popular first-class venue for which sport? football (soccer) cricket rugby speedway