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Gilpin Gazette Competition Answers

Gilpin Gazette Issue 10 - A Cumbrian Quiz

1. When did the Lake District National Park come into being?
15th August 1951

2. Which is the highest tarn in the Lake District?
Broadcrag Tarn lies at 2,746 feet (higher than Red Tarn at 2,356 feet), and there is also an unnamed tarn on Long Top at 2,786 feet (on the highest of the Crinkle Craggs - drawn but not named by Wainwright). An amusing - and pertinent - comment from one guest was "What size denotes a tarn? Could a rambler emptying a large thermos onto a hollow form a tarn?"

3. Name the wettest area of the Lake District.
Sprinkling Tarn receives an annual rainfall of over 5,000 mm, and is the wettest recorded uninhabited place. Styhead Tarn averages 4,391 mm, and Seathwaite is known as the wettest inhabited place in the Lake District.

4. How wide is the Lake District?
33 miles or 53.5 kilometres. The Lake District National Park is within Cumbria, but does not fill it!

5. Who owns Windermere's lake bed?
Privately owned before the 1930s, the sheriff who then purchased the lake gave it to the people of Windermere. South Lakeland District Council now act as landlords of the lake bed, and as such look after the moorings and jetties.

6. Which is the highest mountain in England?
Scafell Pike (3,210 feet).

7. Which is the steepest road in England?
Hardknott Pass (mainly 1 in 3, and 1 in 2.5 in places).

8. Which church claims to be the smallest church in England?
St Olaf's Church at the head of the Wasdale Valley is claimed to be the smallest church in England. However, according to the Guinness Book of Records, the title goes to Bremilham Church at Foxley-cum-Bremilham in Wiltshire.

9. Name 7 literary figures who lived in the Lake District at some point in their lives.
In alphabetical order: Melvyn Bragg, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Margaret Cropper, John Cunliffe, Hunter Davies, Margaret Forster, Charles Lamb, Harriet Martineau, Norman Nicholson, Thomas de Quincey, Arthur Ransome, John Ruskin, Beatrix Potter, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Robert Southey, Alfred Wainwright, Sir Hugh Walpole, Dorothy Wordsworth, William Wordsworth... Have we missed any?!

10. When did the inspirational Alfred Wainwright pass away?
Sunday 20th January 1991, six days after his 84th birthday.

11. The Beast of Bowness is said to have the body of a hedgehog, the tail of a squirrel and a pair of bee-like wings. What is it called?
The Tizzie-Wizzie. First spotted by a Bowness boatman around 1900, Tizzie-Wizzies are shy, water-loving creatures.

12. What animal terrorised pilgrims who entered the woods between Kendal and Windermere?
During the 12th century a wild boar terrorised the pilgrims.

13. Who killed the animal from question 12?
Richard de Gylpin killed the boar and was rewarded with the manor of Kentmere.

14. Who or what is said to walk about the shores of Windermere when harm is about to come to the neighbourhood?
A ghostly white horse walks on the water from shore to shore when harm is imminent.

15. Where is the annual World Championship Gurning Competition held?
A tradition at the Egremont Crab Fair for the last seven centuries, on the Saturday nearest 18th September, the World Gurning Championship is one of the many sporting events on offer throughout the day. The fair commences at dawn, when a greasy pole is erected, on top of which is placed a prize (e.g. food or cash). Apples are thrown from the back of a lorry during the Applecart Parade, to be scrambled for by youngsters, there are street races, as well as a proper athletics meeting, hound trails, Cumberland and Westmorland wrestling and a terrier show. The evening sees events of a more unusual nature - competitions for best sentimental song-singer, the best junior joke-teller, the fastest clay-pipe smoker - and of course, the World Championship Gurning Competition. The gurning must be done through a specially kept horse-collar ('gurning through a braffin'), and is a complex art form involving facial elasticity and a true appreciation of the grotesque. The fiercely contested title is decided by the audience - whichever gurner gets the most applause wins and the exalted prize is a 'Cumbrian face pack' - two slices of cucumber and some Lake District mud.

16. Where and when is the World's Biggest Liar competition held?
Every November at the Santon Bridge Inn at the bottom of Wasdale. The competition is held in memory of Will Ritson, a popular local landlord and enthusiastic liar. One of his tales, no doubt for the benefit of tourists, was that the local turnips grew so big they were hollowed out and used for sheep sheds. After he passed away his inventive yarns must have been sorely missed in the local community, as the World's Biggest Liar Competition was born in his memory.