Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
50 free Cornwall trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Cornwall has its own language, its own saint, its own flag and its own pasty with legal protection. It is the southernmost county in the UK, the birthplace of the railway locomotive and, according to legend, of King Arthur. This Cornwall quiz covers Kernow's geography from the Tamar to Land's End, the tin and copper mines that became a World Heritage Site, the Eden Project and the Minack Theatre, Cornish food from stargazy pie to clotted cream, Poldark and Daphne du Maurier, and the customs of Padstow and Helston. Every answer is sourced and explained.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the Cornish-language name for Cornwall?
Kernow
Cymru is Wales and Breizh is Brittany, its fellow Brittonic-speaking cousins. Dumnonia was the post-Roman kingdom that covered Cornwall and Devon.
Q 02Which river forms most of the border between Cornwall and Devon?
Tamar
King Æthelstan fixed the boundary there in 936 after pushing the Britons west. Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge and the Tamar Bridge carry the main crossings at Saltash.
Q 03What is Cornwall's only city?
Truro
It gained city status in 1877, a year after the Diocese of Truro was created. Bodmin had been the county town from 1838 but lost its functions to Truro.
Q 04Truro Cathedral was the first new-site Anglican cathedral built in England since which one, in 1220?
Salisbury
John Loughborough Pearson's Gothic Revival design went up between 1880 and 1910 on the site of St Mary's parish church.
Q 05Which headland is the southernmost place on mainland Great Britain?
Lizard Point
Cornwall is both the westernmost part of the South West Peninsula and the UK's southernmost county. The Lizard is also famous for its carved serpentine rock.
Q 06Land's End sits on which peninsula at the western tip of Cornwall?
Penwith
It is the most westerly point of mainland England and the start of the famous end-to-end route to John o' Groats. The Longships lighthouse stands on rocks just offshore.
Q 07Which granite tor on Bodmin Moor is the highest point in Cornwall?
Brown Willy
Rough Tor is the slightly lower neighbour. Dozmary Pool on the moor's southern slopes is one claimed resting place of Excalibur.
Q 08Who is generally regarded as the patron saint of Cornwall?
Piran
Michael the Archangel probably held the title in Norman times and the Anglican Church still calls him Protector of Cornwall. Piran is also patron saint of tin miners.
Q 09According to legend, how did Cornwall's patron saint arrive from Ireland?
Floating on a millstone
Irish pagans supposedly rolled him off a cliff tied to the stone; the sea calmed and he drifted ashore at Perranzabuloe, where he built a tiny oratory in the dunes.
Q 10What does Cornwall's flag, the banner of its patron saint, look like?
A white cross on black
In heraldic terms, 'sable, a cross argent'. The earliest written description dates only from 1838; the same design is the arms of a Breton family from Cornouaille.
Q 11Cornish belongs to which branch of the Celtic languages, alongside Welsh and Breton?
Brittonic
All three descend from Common Brittonic, once spoken across Great Britain. Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Manx are the Goidelic branch.
Q 12In 2010 UNESCO reclassified Cornish from 'extinct' to what?
Critically endangered
The language had died out as a community tongue by the end of the 18th century; a 20th-century revival made the old label inaccurate.
Q 13In what year were the Cornish granted national minority status under a European framework convention?
2014
The announcement on 24 April gave the Cornish the same recognition as the Scots, Welsh and Irish within the UK.
Q 21St Michael's Mount is linked to which town by a causeway passable at low tide?
Marazion
The tidal island in Mount's Bay has been home to the St Aubyn family since about 1650 and is now managed by the National Trust.
Q 22Who built the open-air Minack Theatre on the cliffs at Porthcurno?
Rowena Cade
She bought the headland for £100 after the First World War. The first production, The Tempest in 1932, used the Atlantic as its backdrop.
Q 23Which Shakespeare play opened the Minack Theatre in 1932?
The Tempest
Cade's village players had staged A Midsummer Night's Dream in a meadow in 1929 and wanted a more dramatic setting for their shipwreck story.
Q 14Since 2011 the name 'Cornish pasty' has held which legal protection in Europe?
Protected Geographical Indication
It took the Cornish Pasty Association a nine-year campaign. Under the rules the pasty must be D-shaped and crimped on the side, never the top, which is the Devon way.
Q 15Besides beef, potato and onion, which vegetable belongs in a traditional Cornish pasty?
Swede
Confusingly, Cornish people call swede 'turnip'. Emigrating miners carried the pasty to Mexico, Australia and the American Midwest.
Q 16Stargazy pie, with fish heads poking through the crust, comes from which Cornish village?
Mousehole
It is eaten on Tom Bawcock's Eve, 23 December, celebrating a fisherman who braved a storm to save the village from starvation. The pilchards gaze at the stars.
Q 17Which local product has Protected Geographical Status and cannot legally be made outside the county?
Clotted cream
The cream is made by slowly heating full-fat milk until a thick crust forms. The jam-or-cream-first argument with Devon remains unresolved.
Q 18The Eden Project near St Austell was built inside what?
A reclaimed china clay pit
Its two biome domes are made of inflated ETFE hexagons on steel frames; the larger holds one of the world's biggest indoor rainforests. The full site opened on 17 March 2001.
Q 19What share of Cornwall's visitors did the Eden Project draw in 2004?
One in eight
China clay extraction had become a major Cornish industry as tin and copper declined, leaving the pits the project reclaimed.
Q 20Which 12th-century writer first named Tintagel as the place where King Arthur was conceived?
Geoffrey of Monmouth
In his Historia Regum Britanniae, Merlin disguises Uther Pendragon as Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, to reach Igraine. The actual castle was built by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in the 13th century.
Q 24The Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in which year?
2006
UNESCO later considered putting it on the danger list over plans to reopen South Crofty mine and build a supermarket at Hayle Harbour.
Q 25Where did Cornishman Richard Trevithick's locomotive make the first railway journey in 1804?
Merthyr Tydfil, Wales
It hauled a train along the Penydarren Ironworks tramway on 21 February. Trevithick was born between Camborne and Redruth in the heart of mining country.
Q 26Cornish chemist Humphry Davy is best remembered for inventing what?
The miners' safety lamp
He also isolated potassium and sodium in 1807 and discovered that nitrous oxide made him laugh. His assistant was a young Michael Faraday.
Q 27Cornwall became a duchy in which year?
1337
Edward III created it for his son the Black Prince. The monarch's eldest son still becomes Duke of Cornwall automatically; the current duke is Prince William.
Q 28Who automatically holds the title Duke of Cornwall?
The monarch's eldest son
He gains it at birth or when his parent takes the throne, but cannot sell duchy assets for personal gain. From 1993 the then Prince Charles voluntarily paid income tax on the surplus.
Q 29The Cornish rebellion of 1497 is attributed to the grievances of which workers?
Tin miners
Led by Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank, the rebels marched on London to protest taxes for a Scottish war. The 1549 Prayer Book Rebellion followed two generations later.
Q 30Winston Graham's Poldark novels were adapted by the BBC in 2015 and in which earlier year?
1975
Robin Ellis played Ross Poldark first; Aidan Turner took over the scything duties forty years later. Graham published the books between 1945 and 2002.