Answer: cable trams. If you've been lucky enough to visit the Californian city you'll know that it has a very distinctive form of transport - known locally as cable cars - which work by means of a constantly moving cable which runs through a metal channel set into the road. The trams have a gripper at the bottom which attaches to the cable to move forward and ungrips when the tram needs to stop. An identical system was installed up Highgate Hill in 1884. It was the first such system in Europe and was in use until 1909. The cable was about 1 1/2 miles long and was powered by two steam engines housed in a building on the east side of Highgate High Street. Representatives of other towns and cities came to see the new method working. As a result Birmingham adopted the system for one of its steep hills. The company which owned the tramway was never financially successful and the cable system was eventually abandoned in 1909.

A: Yes he really existed and became Lord Mayor four times between 1397 and 1419. Amazingly, at one point he was simultaneously the Mayor of both London and Calais (which was then an English possession). And did he really have a cat? Sadly, no. The cat was probably a much later addition to the folk tale/pantomime story. One suggestion is that he was a merchant dealing in different commodities - a cat is the name of a type of coal barge. Dick Whittington and his coal barge just isn't a snappy title. And to add further disappointment, far from a penniless boy with a spotty hanky on a stick, the real Richard Whittington was the son of a well-to-do merchant who had his son apprenticed to a mercer in the City of London.

Answer, Thomas Telford (1757 - 1884) built the Archway Road using an innovative technique using cement and gravel which became the basis for modern road building. A friend nicknamed him The Collossos of Roads, which shows that bad puns also have a long history.

The church, was built by the same architect - Sir Charles Barry.

Answer, Highgate Hill, just south of Magdala Avenue.