The London Cabbie's Quiz Book: Pit Your Wits Against the World's Smartest Taxi Drivers

By Ian Beetlestone

Get up to speed on London trivia and get inside the heads of black cab drivers with questions from the famously difficult test they have to pass.

Pay a visit to London and a black cab will probably be one of the first things you will see. The London taxi drivers are almost as famous as the black cabs in which they drive; this is mainly due to their in-depth knowledge of London and ability in taking their occupants to their desired destination amid the congestion and the chaos that you often find when travelling through London’s streets. London taxi drivers go through stringent training to obtain their licence, they need to pass “The Knowledge,” a test which is among the hardest to pass in the world, and has been described as “like having an atlas of London implanted into your brain.”

The test requires you to master no fewer than 320 basic routes, all of the 40,000 streets that are scattered within the basic routes and approximately 20,000 landmarks and places of public interest that are located within a six-mile radius of Charing Cross.

This book breaks the test down into a series of head-scratching questions and features enough trivia about the capital to surprise even born and bred Londoners. It’s the perfect gift for anyone who thinks they know London inside-out, or wants to learn more!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9780711251069

Book preview

The London Cabbie’s Quiz BookThe London Cabbie’s Quiz Book: Pit Your Wits Against the World’s Smartest Taxi Drivers

IAN BEETLESTONE

Contents

Introduction

Map Test

Stage 1: The 56s

01 Manor House Station to Gibson Square

02 Myddelton Square to Golden Square

03 St John’s Wood Station to Brompton Oratory

04 St Martin’s Lane to Fulham Broadway Station

05 The Boltons to Campden Hill Square

06 Australia High Commission to Paddington Station

07 Parliament Square to Golden Lane

08 Armoury House to Tower Bridge

09 Beaumont Square to Cannon Wharf Business Centre

10 Jubilee Gardens to Royal London Hospital

11 Victoria Station to Liverpool Street Station

12 Bancroft Road to St Peter’s Street

Stage 2: The 28s

01 Euston Station to Brixton Prison

02 Overhill Road to Marylebone Station

03 Lorrimore Square to Old Bailey

04 British Museum to Elspeth Road

05 Battersea Church Road to Goodge Street Station

06 Tilling Road to Chetwynd Road

07 Well Street to Finsbury Park Station

08 Cambridge Heath Station to Mudchute Station

09 Parnell Road to North Greenwich Station

10 New Cross Station to the National Maritime Museum

11 Consort Road to the Ministry of Defence

12 Stamford Street to Stamford Hill

Stage 3: The 21s

01 Torriano Avenue to The Bishop’s Avenue

02 Crouch End Broadway to Spring Hill

03 Primrose Hill Road to Donnington Road

04 Golborne Road to Pennine Drive

05 Royal College of Music to Crouch Hill Station

06 Woodsford Square to Chiswick Mall

07 Ravenscourt Park to Gwendolen Avenue

08 Wimbledon Park Road to Plough Road

09 Streatham Place to Waldram Park Road

10 Shadwell Station to The Oval

11 Star Lane to Oliver Road

12 Copenhagen Street to Charing Cross Station

Stage 4: The Suburbs

01 Heathrow Terminal to RAF Northolt

02 Harlesden to Stanmore

03 East Finchley to Hadley Wood

04 Lea Bridge to Chingford

05 London City Airport to Hornchurch

06 Greenwich to Erith

07 Catford to Biggin Hill Airport

08 Putney to Hampton via Kingston

09 Hammersmith to Hanworth

The Answers

Index

Credits

Introduction

‘Has anybody in here got a degree?’ demanded the examiner as he opened his introductory talk on the Knowledge of London at the old Public Carriage Office in October 2008. One or two of us in the room sheepishly raised our hands. ‘Well, this is harder,’ he boomed in his stern cockney accent: ‘I used to be in the SAS. I carried eighty kilograms over Dartmoor and let me tell you – this is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’

One Knowledge examiner, who was something of an eccentric, was said to have asked a Knowledge girl to tell him where the Ring public house was. ‘I don’t know, sir,’ she said. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘are you sure? Have a think.’ ‘It’s really familiar, sir, and I’m sure I do know it but I just can’t place it,’ came the reply. ‘I tell you what,’ said the examiner, ‘I need a new pen, come with me.’

After leading the baffled Knowledge girl out of the examination room, down a corridor, through another door, across the staff office and to a stationery cupboard, through which he proceeded to rummage, he looked out of the window, pointed across the street and said, ‘Oh look – what’s that down there?’ The student followed his gaze and replied, ‘That’s the Ring public house, sir.’

‘So it is,’ said the examiner, and led her back to the examination room to continue her successful appearance.

The A12 corridor, leading out into the Essex suburbs, has long been known as Green Badge Valley for the large number of London cabbies residing there.

Regulations require the London taxi’s famous turning circle to be under 7.6 m (25 ft) to enable quick manoeuvring in the city’s ancient narrow streets, as well as to navigate the tight roundabout in the forecourt of the Savoy Hotel.

Welcome to a London quiz book like no other. Written by a licensed London taxi driver, The London Cabbie’s Quiz Book gives readers a chance to test their knowledge of the world’s greatest metropolis against the famed London cabbie’s intricate and world-beating Knowledge.

The examiner wasn’t wrong. The Knowledge – the famously thorough course of study and examinations undertaken by all trainee London cabbies – took me longer to complete than my degree and involved far less fun and many more hours of sheer, hard graft. I got my green badge – the All London taxi driver’s licence – in November 2012, after more than four years of intensive study on top of a full-time job. I spent countless hours riding around London on a moped learning 320 set routes around a 9-km (6-mile) radius of Charing Cross, and along the way noted and memorised the locations of thousands of points of interest (‘points’ for short) – anything from a nondescript Balham boozer to Buckingham Palace. I spent countless hours sweating over laminated maps with my fellow Knowledge students (Knowledge boys and girls, as we call them), reciting routes from one point to another, which my partner traced with a whiteboard pen so we could dissect and perfect them.

When you think you’re ready, after a short written test to make sure you can read a map, you begin what are known as ‘appearances’, which make up the bulk of the Knowledge exams. These are legendarily and inexplicably terrifying. It’s just you and the examiner, sitting across a table from one another, dressed in suits and calling each other ‘sir’ (or, occasionally, ‘ma’am’). It’s been called ‘the last bastion of the empire’ for its archaic, regimented formality.

The examiner names a point, and – assuming you know – you tell them where it is. Then they give you another. With their locations satisfactorily established, the examiner says, ‘off you go then’, and you recite the most direct driving route between the two. After four questions, the examiner tells you whether you did well enough to score points and tells you to come back after fifty-six days’ more study for your next appearance.

That’s just the first stage, which we call ‘56s’, after the gap between appearances. When you’ve had enough appearances and scored enough points to get through 56s, the examiner starts telling you to come back in twenty-eight days, and the questions get harder. When you’ve scored enough points on 28s he tells you to come back in twenty-one days and the questions get harder still. Eventually, when you complete 21s, you are deemed to have achieved the required level of Knowledge (you get your ‘req’, as we know it in the trade).

Next it’s time to learn the suburbs. This is something of a coda to the main body of the Knowledge and merely involves learning scores of set routes from the edges of the 9-km (6-mile) radius out to the suburban districts. For these there’s just one appearance, in which you recite a handful of the routes word for word. Nothing to it!

Finally, a few weeks after that, you put on your best clothes and return with your loved ones for a pep talk on life out there in the real world, driving an actual London taxi, and you’re called up one by one for a handshake and to be presented with your licence. That’s probably the only part that’s as easy as doing a degree.

Using this book

This book aims to replicate the Knowledge experience for the reader – consider yourself an armchair Knowledge boy or girl – except hopefully with rather more fun and a little less graft.

Take this, now, as your introductory talk, after which five sets of quizzes follow. First, the map test to get you in the mood. Then three sections of quizzes relating to the area within a 9-km (6-mile) radius of Charing Cross – 56s, 28s and 21s – followed by a further section taking you out into the suburbs. In between it all, I’ve thrown in a few nuggets of taxi trivia and insider snippets from the trade for your entertainment.

Apart from the map test (which involves no route), all the quizzes in this book are based on actual set routes from the Knowledge itself, beginning with the first route we all learn – Manor House Station to Gibson Square – and ending with the last – Copenhagen Street to Charing Cross Station. In between, I’ve chosen routes to give the widest possible coverage of the city and tried to make sure I’ve captured as many of the big sights that one feels ought to be included. The suburban routes, likewise, I have whittled down to nine, chosen for the sights they take in and the widest possible coverage.

As in the real Knowledge, the questions get harder as you progress. But also – like the real Knowledge – you are at the whim of your examiner. If you get a nice examiner on a good day, you might be asked something surprisingly easy. Conversely, if you get a nasty examiner on a bad day, you