Towering stupidity!

Many Britons can’t identify famous castles and other sites

‘Unaware of what is on their doorstep’

THEY are both ancient national symbols, built of grey stone and sitting on the top of a hill.

And that’s about as far as the similarities between Dover and Edinburgh castles go.

But astonishingly, one in five Britons cannot tell the difference between the two landmarks.

A survey found a series of telling gaps in the ability of people to identify some of Britain’s most famous sights.

While 47 per cent did not correctly identify Edinburgh Castle, one in five actually thought it was 385 miles away in Dover, and one in 50 even thought it was Buckingham Palace.

Other Scots landmarks suffered badly from lack of recognition. Nearly one in ten thought Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge was the Forth Bridge; one in 20 thought the Palace of Holyroodhouse was in Surrey; and one in six could not even name Scotland’s capital. The pattern was repeated south of the Border. Glastonbury Tor may be a must-see site for visitors to the West Country but only 43 per cent recognised it.

Nearly two-thirds successfully placed Portsmouth in Hampshire, but one in seven thought it was in Devon, possibly confusing the city with Plymouth.

Devon also puzzled a number of those who tried to work out the geography of tourist attractions – nearly two-thirds could not pick out Dartmoor as a feature of the county.

And one in 50 wrongly thought Shakespeare was born in Ramsgate, Kent.

The survey was carried out for National Express.