The Friday quiz: The Answers
How did you get on with our Friday quiz (April 11, 2014)? Here are the answers…
1. What is the largest locomotive in the National Railway Museum?
b. Chinese locomotive
2. Where is the founder of Betty’s originally from?
b. Switzerland
3. Which of the shows does NOT feature at The York Dungeon?
c. The Lost Viking
4. What is the oldest building in York?
a. The Norman House
5. Which of these was NOT a Mayor or Lord Mayor of York?
c. Walter de Helmsley
6. How many visitors has the Jorvik centre had in the last 29 years?
a. 16 million
7. What was once stored in the long lost Holy Trinity Church in King’s Square?
b. Sheep
8. What was the original role of the York St John University building on Lord Mayor’s Walk?
c. Teacher training college
9. Why do the top floors of Shambles buildings overhang the ground floors?
b. To protect the meat in the butchers shops from sunlight
10. What bridge is this?
c. Lendal Bridge
St. John’s College was originally Archbishop Holgate’s Grammar School, before it moved to Hull Road, wasn’t it?
I think you’re wrong on question 9.
Shading the meat from the sun doesn’t explain why buildings that weren’t butchers shops also had the overhang.
I was taught many years ago that it was an early tax evasion mechanism. Taxes were levied on the area of land occupied by a building, so making the upper floors larger was a good way of increasing the floorspace of your house whilst minimising the tax payable on it.
That’s certainly one of the reasons we’ve heard too Harry: in fact a tour guide gave that as the reason in Shambles this lunchtime! But our answer is also correct, sourced from the York Museum Trust’s History Of York website (spoiler: here’s the link), and out of the three options it’s the only valid reason.