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Mining, rugby , choral singing, daffodils and rain - oh, the interminable rain.

All things which, at least to the undiscerning and easily pleased, have come to signify Wales - but there's so much more lying beneath that surface image of us as being a nation of sports-mad, vocally blessed colliery workers with wardrobes full of waterproofs.

Indeed, a new book by trivia king and author Christopher Winn, entitled I Never Knew That About Wales and released just in time for St David's Day, is about to lift the lid on a treasure trove of hitherto obscure and little-known delights and curios about this country of ours.

You'll never know how much you never knew unless you read on.

1. Menai Bridge in Anglesey - designed by Thomas Telford and opened on 30 January 1826 - was the first suspension bridge in the world constructed to take heavy traffic.

At the time it was built it was also longest bridge in world (measuring 1,265ft , with a 579ft span).

2. Near Abercraf lies Ogof Ffynnon Dddu - at 1,010ft deep, it’s the deepest cave in Britain.

With over 30 miles of passages, it’s also the third longest.

3. The entrance to the coach yard of the 15th century Ye Old Bulls Head Inn in Beaumaris is the largest simple hinged door in Britain (13ft high and 11ft wide).

4. The first official Welsh settler to America, Howell Powell, was from Brecon. He left for Virginia in 1642.

5. The Great Orme in Caernarfonshire has the longest articial ski slope in Britain - built in 1987, it’s nearly 1,000ft long.

6. Aside from being (at 58 letters) the longest place name in Europe and the longest valid, single-word internet domain name in the world, Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch was actually used as a secret password in the in the cult 1968 Jane Fonda movie Barbarella - writers of the the sci-fi kitsch fest had characters say it each time they wanted to gain entry to a secret resistance HQ.

7. The well at Llanwrtyd Wells in Powys is the most sulphurous in Wales - historian Theophilus Evans (1693 - 1767) once wrote of how the waters had cured his scurvy.

8. Craig-y-Nos Castle was home for 40 years of opera singer Adelina Patti in the late 1800s.

Born in Madrid, she once sang at the White House and was said to have reduced Abraham Lincoln and his wife to tears.

(Image: Matthew Horwood)

9. The village of Aberdaron lies further away from a railway station than anywhere else in England and Wales.

10. The oldest tree in Wales is the Llangernyw Yew in St Digain’s church yard, Llangernyw, near Conwy.

It’s approximately 4,000 years old.

11. Swallow Falls at Betws-y-coed is the most visited waterfall in Britain.

(Image: Mark Sykes/Flickr/Creative Commons)

Look: 41 breathtaking reasons DJ Sara Cox would have a dream holiday in Wales

12. In the graveyard of Strata Florida Abbey in Cardiganshire is a head stone which reads: “The left leg and part of the thigh of Henry Hughes, cooper, cut off and interr’d here, June 18 1756.

Hughes had lost the limb in a farming accident , but still managed to later emigrate to America, where the rest of him was eventually buried.

13. The loser of the last fatal duel to be fought in Wales, Thomas Heslop, is buried in the church yard at Llandyfriog, near Newcastle Emlyn.

The duel was apparently fought over ‘ungentlemanly remarks’ made about the barmaid at the town’s Salutation Inn in 1814.

14. The great glasshouse in the National Botanical Garden of Wales, Carmarthenshire, is the largest single-span glasshouse in the world, measuring 312ft in length and 180ft in width.

15. In the Tabernacle cemetary at Glanaman lies James Colton (1858-1936), a miner who married one of early 20th century’s most controversial characters - namely Russian-born feminist and anarchist Emma Goldman.

Described by future CIA boss J Edgar Hoover as “the most dangerous woman in America”, Colton offered to marry her so she could gain a UK passport after being thrown out of the US.

She was played by Maureen Stapleton in the 1981 Warren Beatty film Reds, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for the role.

16. Denbighshire’s John Rowlands was born in 1841 and, after being sent to the workhouse in St Asaph as a boy, ran off to sea aged 16.

He sailed to New Orleans as a cabin boy and was adopted by Henry Stanley, a merchant whose name he later took.

He fought on both sides of American Civil War, went on to become a journalist and, in 1869, was sent to Tanzania to look for elusive Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone - to whom he is said to have proffered the now infamous greeting, “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

17. It was in the gardens of 17th century Nantclwyd Hall, near Ruthin, that Major Walter Wingfield apparently invented lawn tennis in 1873.

He came up with the idea after playing with a new kind ball made from of India rubber which had been designed to bounce on grass.

Wingfield later drew up a set of rules and, in 1874, patented the game with the title ‘sphairistrike’.

18. In 1881 the first lager brewery in Britain was opened in Wrexham by German immigrants.

Wrexham Lager was, for a long time, the only draught beer serve on British ships, as, unlike other traditional beers, it was unaffected by the motion of the waves.

19. Rhos-on-sea has, in St Trillo’s, the smallest chapel in Britain, measuring only 11ft by 8ft and seating just six people.

20. Cardiff’s Coal Exchange (completed in 1886) was once where the price of the world’s coal was determined. In 1907 the globe’s first £1m deal was struck there.

Looks: It's the Coal Exchange in pictures

21. The Mumbles gets its name from the French word ‘mamelles’, meaning breasts, referring to two little islands located offshore.

(Image: David365/Flickr/Creative Commons)

22. The world’s first message ever sent by radio was transmitted by Guglielmo Marconi on May 11 1897, from Larvernock Point, south of Penarth to a mast on Flat Holm in the Bristolchannel - a grand distance of three miles.

The message read: “Are you ready?”

I Never Knew That About Wales is published by Ebury Press on February 26, priced £8.99

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