Jim Shepard Game Designer Wikipedia

So you know that our city was originally called Snotengaham, that every single Bramley apple is descended from the same tree in Southwell, and that both shin-pads and ibuprofen were invented in Nottingham.

But are you prepared to take it to the next level?

We wanted to find the facts about Nottingham and Nottinghamshire which you can't quite believe are true, but are.

And the book '301 Nottinghamshire Facts' by Chris Adams and Martin Goddard seemed a pretty good place to start.

Here's our pick of the best:

1. The University of Nottingham student's union was the location for the first ever gig by Paul McCartney and Wings – on February 9, 1972. It was the first time McCartney had played in five years, and tickets cost 40p.

2. Nottingham was the first place in England to record an earthquake – back in 1180.

3. The Lunar Estate in Bulwell is Britain's only housing estate named after Apollo astronauts. The roads include Aldrin Close, Shepard Close, and Apollo Drive.

4. Mahatma Gandhi visited Beeston in 1931. He was visiting his nephew JV Joshi, who was studying at the university and lodging in Linden Grove.

5. Lady Bay Bridge was used as an Eastern Bloc railway crossing in the 1982 television series 'Smiley's People' based on the work of John le Carre.

6. The first number plate in Nottingham was AU1, registered by William Dowson in 1903. (Later, the same number plate featured in the James Bond film 'Goldfinger', on Auric Goldfinger's Rolls-Royce.)

7. Notts County's theme song 'County's The Team For Me', released in 1981, was dubbed the worst pop song of all time by Radio One DJ Noel Edmonds.

8. Gandalf in 'Lord of the Rings' may have been based on a woman – Jane Neave from Gedling. She was JRR Tolkein's aunt, and the author was said to have been greatly influenced by her physical presence and mystical tendancies.

9. The sundial in Portland Square, Sutton-in-Ashfield, is the largest in Europe.

The sundial in Sutton-in-Ashfield (Image: Andie Gilmour / English Wikipedia)

10. Former Doctor Who, Matt Smith, played alongside Jermaine Jenas in Nottingham Forest's youth team.

11. The first STD (subscriber trunk dialling) telephone call – one without an operator – was made from Nottingham Council House to Belfast in 1962.

12. The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII, once owned Grove Farm in Lenton. He used it to keep his herd of shorthorns, and possibly also to entertain lady friends.

13. Nottingham was the first city to install braille signs in its shopping centres.

14. The myth that lemmings throw themselves off cliffs is thought to have originated from Arthur Mee, a former editor of the Nottingham Post who included the incorrect information in an edition of his 'Children's Encyclopedia', published from 1908 to 1964.

15. Radcliffe Road in West Bridgford was the first road in the world to be laid with Tarmac, after County Surveyor Edgar Hooley obtained a British patent in 1902.

16. Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys wrote 'West End Girls' while staying with his cousin in West Leake.

17. July 1956 saw the first ever UK helicopter commuter service, between Lenton in Nottingham and Leicester, costing 11 shillings single or £1 return. It was launched by Transport Minister John Profumo (whatever happened to him?) but only lasted until November, because of fuel prices and the Suez crisis.

18. The UK's first radio phone-in was on Radio Nottingham on February 4, 1968. It's thought the topic was pest control.

19. Ken Dodd made his first professional performance in Nottingham, at the Nottingham Empire Theatre of Varieties in 1954.

20. Nottingham has the biggest market square in England, at 5.5 acres.

21. Local aviator Bob Slack – who flew 1,000 miles around Britain in 1912 – was the first man to fly newspapers between London and Paris.

22. When Forest beat Derby to win the FA Cup in 1898, they wore their opponents' shirts in the photos, as the photographer was worried that their own red shirts wouldn't show up.

23. The first accurate atomic clock was built by Nottingham-born physicist Louis Essen in 1955 – and was accurate to one second in 300 years.

24. Nottingham Castle features in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel 'Thunderball'. It is described as an "extraordinary trademark of a doll's house".

25. In the 1980s Micky Dolenz of The Monkees lived in Winthorpe near Newark.

Chris and Martin wrote '301 Nottinghamshire Facts' to counter what they saw as 'organised Nottingham bashing' a few years ago.

Chris had said: "It seemed as though we had no response, and while there are many well-known local stories and personalities we felt that there was so much more which remained out of sight."

To prove the point they began to test each other with local stories, hoping to catch each other out. Eventually, after an evening in one of their favourite haunts, they came up with a great idea. Why not put all of it in a book?

Robert Bealby was recruited to bring the idea to fruition with his artwork and photography, and five years later in 2012, they self published-their book, which contains 301 of the most extraordinary facts which they collected.