Страноведение
творческая работа учащихся по английскому языку (8 класс) на тему

МУНИЦИПАЛЬНОЕ   БЮДЖЕТНОЕ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНОЕ

                                           УЧРЕЖДЕНИЕ

 БАРВИХИНСКАЯ СРЕДНЯЯ ОБЩЕОБРАЗОВАТЕЛЬНАЯ  ШКОЛА

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                                        КОНКУРСНАЯ РАБОТА

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                                     THE  TOWER  OF  LONDON

                                                                                                        Выполнила:

                                                              Горгиладзе Кристина Автандиловна

                                                                                        ученица 8 «В» класса

                                                         Одинцовский район, пос. Рождественно

                                                                                                                  дом 52            

                                                                                                     Руководитель:    

                                                                   Бунтина Надежда Константиновна

                                                                                учитель английского языка

                                                        Барвиха

                                                           2013

                                                          PLAN

                            I. INTRODUCTION

                            II.THE HISTORY OF THE TOWER OF LONDON

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1. THE GROWHT  OF THE TOWER
2. NOT ONLY A FORTRESS
3. HORROR AND DEATH
4. THE CEREMONY OF THE KEYS
5. PRISONERS OF THE TOWER
6. THE CROWN JEWELS
7. THE WHITE TOWER
8. RAVENS

                     III. CONCLUSION

                     IV.   LITERATURE

                                         THE TOWER OF LONDON

1. London is the capital of  the United Kingdom of the Great Britain and

Northern  Ireland. It is a very old city. It began its life two thousand years ago as a Roman fortification at a place where it was possible to cross the River Thames.

           London is one of the world’s most enjoyable cities. Visited by tourists in the   millions, the city  offers them an astonishing variety of  scenes. In this historic city the modern tubs shoulders with the old, the present is ever conscious of the past, the great and the small live side by side in tolerance and in every part of  London’s busy and complex life there is to be found a very genuine affection for its traditions, and its fortunes.

     London is famous  for many things. It has buildings that express all the different areas of  its history, for London manages in a unique way to reflect its past and the same time to full the functions of a modern city. There is always something new to be discovered, some fresh approach to a familiar scene, some curious piece of history to be investigated.

           Tourists come from all over the world to visit its historic buildings, such as St. Paul’s Cathedral, which has a huge dome, the Houses of  Parliament, where you can see and hear the famous clock, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, where all the British monarchs were crowned and of course the Tower of  London.

           The Tower of  London is  one of the oldest and the most popular buildings in London. About two million people visit it every year. The Tower was built more than 900 hundred years. Nowadays it is one of the most remarkable and the most famous sights in the world. The Tower attracts so much interest because it is closely associated with many important events in English history and also because of the excellence of  its medieval fortifications.          

          At English lessons I have already learnt some interesting facts about the Tower of  London but I would like to know more about this wonderful building. I think it would be interesting to touch its history because  the grey stones of the Tower could  tell terrible stories of violence and injustice. Many sad and cruel events took place within the walls of the Tower.

II. The History of  The Tower of London.

               The Tower of  London, one of  the most imposing fortresses in England, as well as the best known, stands on the  east side of the City of London. Begun by William the Conqueror with the triple object of protesting the city, overawing  its citizens, and controlling the approaches to London by river, it has been altered and added to by many succeeding monarchs. The Tower has been in its time a citadel, a royal place and a state prison; it is still an arsenal maintained by a garrisson, and in the World Wars it was again used as a prison. Though often attacked and besieged, it has never been captured. Now it is London’s smallest village, covering 18 acres, 55 families live here, growing  their geraniums and playing bowls on the ex-moat.The Deputy-Governor lives in sleeping quarters used by Edward I, Edward II, and  Edward III, one of the 42 Yeoman Warders, founded by Henry VII in 1485, where the Royal Mint was in 1590. But each night they still ceremoniously lock the against the dangerous London.

1. The growth of the Tower.

        Initially in Tower must have been a small Roman garnison fort founded on the South by the Thames and on the west and on the north. Immediately after his coronation (Christmas, 1066), William I the Conqueror began to erect fortifications there to dominate the indangenous mercantile community and to control access to the Pool of  London, the major port area before the construction of docks father downstream in the 19 th century.

The foundations for William’s Tower were laid out by Gundulph , the bishop of Rochester. The central tower – known as the White Tower – was built  about 1078 close inside the Roman City wall and was built of  limestone  from Caen in Normandy. It took about twenty years to construct and  it was at that time the largest and most imposing building in England. The walls were 90 feet high and 15 feet thick. The single door was on the south side, 15 feet up with a removable staircase. During the 12 th and the 13 th centuries  the fortrifications were extended beyond the City wall, the White Tower becoming the nucleus of a series of concentric defences enclosing the inner  and an outer ward. The inner «curtain» has 13 towers, of which the best known are the Bloody Tower, the Beauchamp Tower, and the Wakefield Tower. Henry I added the chapel of  St. Peter and Vincula (it was rebuilt in 1520). Henry II added kitchens, bakery and gaol. Richard I, who gave the Thames to the City, went off on the crusades leaving William of Longchamp to add wall, Bell Tower, Wardrobe Towers  and ditch before he was successfully besieged by Prince John who, as s king, strengthened it. Henry III began the inner wall, the moat and the royal place. Until Edward I called  a Flemish engineer, the moat was ineffective – the water went out at low side. Edward’s expert built shluice  gates to keep the moat filled, and the Thames was pushed back from the base of the salt, Wakefield and Bell Towers and  their connecting wall to the south and a wharf was created between the moat and the river. Originally the moat was fed by the Thames but is has been drained since 1843. The wall outside the moat has embrasures.

 2. Not only a fortress.

The Tower was a royal residens until the 17th century.

In its time it had also housed the Royal Mint, the ordnance store, the public records, and the Royal Menagerie (the Lion Tower). Most of these functions have been dispersed to other places. The armouries that now occupy the White Tower, as well as a later 17th –century brick building alongside, house arms and armour from the early Middle Ages to modern times. The British crown jewels and regalia are kept in the Jewels House which is part of Waterloo Barracks. During the 1990s restoration work was carried out in various part of the Tower, notably in the medieval apartments in Wakefield and St. Thomas’s towers.
A military garrison is maintained within the Tower, which with its precincts constitutes a “liberty” outside the jurisdictions of the lord mayor and the bishop of London. It is held for the sovereign by a constable, who is now always a field marshal.

There is a residens of  government, who occupies the 16th –century Queens's House on Tower Green and is in charge of the yeoman warders, or “beefeaters”, as they are popularly called. They still wear a Tudor uniform and live in the Tower. Next to the Tower is the Tower Bridge, built in 1894, the only central-city bridge across the Thames below London Bridge.

The Tower was the stage for a succession of public shows. King Stephen (1135-1154) was the first king to live there; James I (1603-1625) was last. James made the lions and bears of his menagerie, gave public fight which he watched from the Lion Tower. The pre-coronation festivales and processions though London to Westminster Abbey began here. At Edward Is coronation, he flung coins into tapestry-hung streets literally running with wine (1272). Before his coronation, Henry IV initiated the ceremony of the Bath when he knighted 46 nobles in the White Tower baths, after which they prayed all night in St. John's chapel (1399). After his crowing, Edward IV played courtly games and picnicked on the Tower lawns (1460). The Cheapside goldsmiths hung out cloth of gold for Mary (1533). Elizabeth I, who as princess had arrived though Traitors' Gate, rode in a golden chariot through triumphal street arches and past loyal tableaux at her coronation (1559). Returning from exile in France, Charles II's spring festivities included a new set of Crown Jewels and were the last such pageant at the Tower (1661).

Some shows were less festivals. The barons seized the Tower, forced King John to sing the Magna Carta (1215),  then imported the French Dauphin, Louis, to the Tower to be king (1216). Edward II's queen helped her lover Roger Mortimer seize the tower, release the prisoners, and give the keys to the Londoners and  then rule  for the prisoner boy-king, Edward III (1326). Other shows starred the London mob. While Henry III hid here, they pelted his queen with rubbish at London Bridge (1261). After Richard II made promises to Way Tyler and his rebel pleasant at Mile End, they broke into the Tower, ransacked it and dragged out their four worst enemies  to behead them on Tower Hill (1381)-the king later calmed them.

3. Horrors and death.
      There were appalling horrors. Edward I took 600 Jews prisoner, Hanged 267 of them and banished the rest (1278-1279). Richard of Gloucester went off to be crowned Richard III, supposedly having his two prince nephews murdered in the Bloody Tower / sir Thomas Overbury was murdered by a slow and painful three months of poison (1612). When Charles I sent six MPs here for upsetting his favorite, The Duke of Buckingham, one took there years to die from tuberculosis contracted in filthy cells (1629 – 1632). But whether king or pauper, Protestant or Catholic, have left the Tower alive, even recently. Princess Elizabeth (later Elizabeth I) did, biding her time exercising on the ramparts between Bell and Beauchamp towers (1554); Sir Roger Casement, the Irish Nationalist and traitor, who left the Tower to be hanged at Pentonville in 1916, did not.

     The race of executions stepped up after Henry VIII’s Reformation, reaching its climax of Catholic and Jesuit persecution at the end of the sixteenth century. Torture could be grisly. In 1446 when the Duke of Exeter was Constable of the Tower he had introduced the rack, known ever since as the “Duke of Exeter’s daughter”. Edmund Campion was stretched on it three times and did a spell in Little Ease, but still did not confess. The “Scavenger’s Daughter” had the opposite effect crushing its victim with two iron hoops until blood spouted “from nostrils, the mouth and the anus”. Father Garard, a Jesuit, was twice hung up by the hands in manacles (1597). There were also thumb screws, a spiked collar, and a dungeon below the watermark that brought up hungry rats with each tide. Execution was two-tiered: Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard and Elizabeth I’s dear Earl of Essex were executed quietly on Tower Green, an exclusive privilege; but Thomas Cromwell, Edmund Campion, Archbishop Laud, Duke of Monmouth (whose executioner resorted to knife when he was still alive after five chops with the aux) and many more provided entertainment and spectacle for a jeering mob up on Tower Hill. The first to be beheaded here was Sir Simon de Burley, Richard II’s tutor (1382); the last, in England, was an 80-year-old Jacobite, Lord Lovat (1747).

4. The ceremony of the keys.

        The Tower is guarded by the Yeomen Warders, popularly called “Beefeaters”. There are two letters, E.R., on the front of their tunics. They stand for the Queens name Elizabeth Regina. The uniform is as it used to be in Tudor times.
 Their everyday uniform is black and red, but on state occasions they wear a ceremonial dress: fine red state uniforms with the golden and black stripes and the wide lace-collar, which were in fashion in the 16th century.

    Crossing the causeway you will pass underneath the Byward Tower build in the 13th century. To the left is the Bell Tower. Its name comes from the belfry on the top. The name of the Byward Tower probably comes from the custom of giving the password, or byword, at night before going through the gate – a custom which is still in force today. At seven minutes before ten o’clock every night the Chief Yeoman Warder in his long red coat and Tudor bonnet performs the ancient ceremony of the keys. In one hand he holds a candle lantern and in the other, the Queen’s keys. He proceeds to Traitors’ Gate where an escort from one of the foot guard regiments awaits him. He hand the lantern to a member of the escort and party moves to the outer gate, the first to be locked. Along the route all the guards and sentries salute the Queen’s keys. Still with his escort, the Chief Yeoman Warder returns to lock the great oak doors of Middle and Byward Tower and the procession retraces its steps to the archway of the Bloody Tower. Here a sentry challenges: “Halt! Who goes there?” The Chief Yeoman Warder answers: “The keys!” – “Whose keys?” – “Queen Elizabeth’s keys!” – “Pass, Queen Elizabeth’s keys! All’s well!” The party proceeds under the archway where the main guard is drawn up. The officer in charge gives the command to present arms, the Chief Yeoman Warder moves two paces forward, lifts his bonnet and cries: “God preserve Queen Elizabeth!”. And, as the clock chimes ten, the guard answers “Amen!” and the bugle sounds the last post. The Chief Yeoman Warder delivers the keys to the Queen’s House and the guard is dismissed.

5. Prisoners of the Tower.

    From the middle of the 16th century in filthy conditions among the mice and the rats the Bell Tower housed famous prisoners like Sir Thomas More, the great friend and adviser of Henry VIII. Queen Elizabeth I as Princess Elizabeth was brought on her sister’s orders on Palm Sunday in 1554 in it. She was brought by river through Traitors’ Gate. The Constable of the Tower had great difficulty with the strong-willed Tudor princess. Proclaiming that she was no traitor, she declined to enter the Tower through Traitors’ Gate and kept her escort shivering in the rain while she refused to move. Finally, and only when everyone was drenched to the skin, could she be persuaded to enter, protesting her innocence all the while. The wall she would have been passing is the outside wall of the Queen’s House. When you enter the inner precinct you see that this is a pretty half-timbered structure, but from here it looks grim and forbidding. Its history is pretty grim. Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, was held here prior to her execution in 1536, Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators who tried to blow up the Houses of Parliament in 1605 were tortured here before being led to their terrible execution on Tower Hill. They were partially hanged, then drawn and quartered before their heads were chopped off and stuck on Tower Bridge for all to see.
To the left of Traitors’ Gate is St. Thomas’s Tower, named in honour of Thomas a Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury murdered in 1170. Pass under the archway and you will see the Bloody Tower in front of you, and the Wakefield Tower will be on your right. In the middle ages the Wakefield Tower was major passage between the fortress and the river. On its first floor there is the small chapel where Henry VI was found stabbed.

The Bloody Tower was once called by a gentler name, the Garden Tower, but soon after the disappearance of the young king Edward V and his brother, young Richard of  York, in 1483 it was nicknamed the Bloody Tower.

The two young princes were supposed to have been smothered while they slept. Certainly they were never seen after they had gone to the Tower to prepare for Edward’s coronation.For cannons, some of   which are still fired ceremonially on state occasions Henry III also whitewashed the White Tower and started the menagerie. The   Holy Roman Emperor gave him three leopards, Louis XIV gave an elephant and the King of  Norway sent a polar bear which went fishing in the Thames. Edward I completed the western inner wall with riverside its Beauchamp Tower and most of the Outer Wall with its Byward Tower and Traitors Gate. The 13th- century Watergate received its nickname, Traitors Gate, from the prisoners brought  through it to the Tower, which was long used as a state prison, to avoid them passing thought the turbulent streets of  the city. He them moved in the mint and Crown Jewels from Westminster-the jewels were all seized during
Cromwell's Commonwealth.

In last 700 year, the armories, museum and Waterloo Barracks are the main additions-the barracks built in the 1840s, when the moat was dried. Titivations include the 14th- century cupolas in the while Tower, Henry VII's two large circular bastions on the north side and his half-timber houses on Tower Green including Queens House; and some theatrical Victorian restoration. The whole complex of buildings covers 18 acres (7 hectares).

Traitors' Grate was the Watergate entrance for prisoners condemned after trial at Westminster. It dates 1240 when Henry III enlarged the fortress by building extra defence works. There is a story that when the work was nearing completion on St. George's day 1240 there was a great storm that resulted in the foundation's being undermined and this resulted in the date collapsing. When the circumstances were repealed identically a year later an inquiry revealed that a priest claimed to have seen a ghost of Thomas a` Becket striking the walls with a crucifix. He said that the ghost was proclaiming that the new building was not for the common good but “for the injury and prejudice of the Londoners, me brethren”.

Since it was the King's grandfather who had caused the death of  the was wise to include a small oratory in the tower of the new building dedicating it to Thomas a` Becket. Even so its rooms have always had a reputation of being haunted. Doors open and close without reason, the figure of a monk in a brown robe has been seen, and ghostly footsteps including the distinctive slap of monastic sandals are sometimes heard.

Nearly two centuries later, in 1674, a chest containing the skeletons of two children was found under the stone steps which originally led up to the south front of the White Tower. Charles 2 decided that these were the little princes, and he commanded that their bones be reburied in Westminster Abbey. The longest, most famous residend of this Tower was Sir Walter Raleigh who was held there from 1603 until 1615 for plotting against James I.

 Coming out of the Bloody Tower you will get to the edge of Tower Green with the White Tower on tor right. On your left you can see the Qeen's House where the governor lives. It isn't open to the public.

 The most recent prisoner in the Queen's House was Rudolf Hess who flew to Scotland  in 1941 to try and arrange peace between Germany and Britain but ended up in the Tower instated one state of the Royal Fusilier which contains many relics dating from the regiment's founding in 1685 and the red brick 17th century building which is the New Armoury and contains many fascinating weapons from the 17th to 19th century.

6. The Crown Lewels.

 After the Civil War Oliver Cromwell had almost all the royal regalia melted down or sold off. He left only the ampulla in the from of the eagle and anointhing spoon which is said to have been made for King John's coronation in 1199, but others say that it was probably first used for Henry IV in 1399, and hidden from Cromwell by Westminster monks. On his restoration Charles 2 had his goldsmiths make new regalia, but he insisted that the crown be called St.Edward's after Edvard  the Confessor. From 1300 onwards the Royal Levels have always been kept in the Tower and in 1671 they were in the Martin Tower when an adventurer called Thomas Blood with the help of two companions almost managed to steal them. He befriended the elderly deputy keeper of the jewels and one night he attaked and overpowered the old man. Blood almost escaped with St.Edward's crown beneath his cloak but he was captured. Now, amazingly, in view of the Tower's history, Charles 2 granted him a pardon. Once throught the heavy polished steel doors, look for an amazing wine cooler made in 1829, ten trumpets made of silver and used on state occasions and several bejeweled  swords. Here, too, you see the robes and insignia of the various orders of chivalry and the coronations robes smothered in gold embroiderery. Next you come to the crown jewls. St.Edward's crown weighs nearly five pounds and is only worn at the coronations. The Imperial State crown was made for Queen Victoria's coronations in 1836 and is worn on state occsions like the opening of Parliament. In addition to 2900 jewels in it has a ruby said to have been given to the Black Prince by Pedro the Cruel in 1367 and to have been worn by Henry V at the battle of Agincourt. It aslo contains one of the Stars of Africa, cut from a colonial diamond found in 1905, the largest diamond ever cut. Then there is the Queen Mother's crown, made for her coronations in 1937. It contains the 14th century

Koh-i-Nur diamond presented to Queen Victoria by the East India Company and recut in 1852 to its present size of 109 carats. The Royal Sceptre contains a part of that immence diamond. The swords of state are here and there are many other fascinating and beautiful pieces.

Turn right, walk past the centry and the entrace to the Oriental Gallery and Heralds Museum. The Heralds museum traces the history of heraldry recognizing one man from another by his emblems. The art was practiced by heralds who have acted as messengers, diplomats and army staff officers (to indentify the enemy) since the twelfth-century crusades. Today, still appointed by the Queen and headed by the Earl   Marshall (the Duke of Norfolk), they dress in gold-embroidered scarlet to play their part in the panoply of annual state pageantry, such as the State Opening of Parliament and the Order of the Garter procession.

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7. The White Tower.

The White Tower is a 3-storied place keep with 100-feet high walls made out of stone from Kent and Caen in Normandy which were shipped to England at immense cost. There are three square and one circular tower and it was Wren who added the peculiar turrets in the 17th century. In 1240 Henry III decided to have the royal apartments and then the whole building whitewashed inside out, hence the nickname the White Tower, a name which has stuck to this day. He also whitewashed the simple and beautiful Chapel of St. John on the second floor and added three stained-glass windows for good measure. It was in this chapel that medieval kings kept vigil the night before their coronation and Henry VI started the custom of creating Knights of the Bath. These were young noblemen who attended him the night before the procession to Westminster for the crowing. They had a ritual bath and then spent the night in the Chapel of St, John. Next morning the king gave each of them a sword and had their spurs of knighthood fastened to their heels. The master-cook – the rule of the cook extended far beyond the kitchen in those days – then came in and said «If you do anything contrary to the order  of knighthood, which God forbid, I shall hack your spurs from your heel and drop them in the soup.» After this the newly created knights joined the king at a feast and then rode out in his coronation procession.

Like other parts of the Tower, the White Tower had its fair share of prisoners. Its first, in 1101,  was Ranulf  Flambard, bishop of  Durham. He was one of the fortunate few to escape. His friend sent a rope hidden in a wine jug and he made his guard drink the wine and  escaped out of the window. Gryffyd ap Llewellyn, the prince of Wales who had led a revolt against the English, was not so lucky. He climbed out of the window but plunged to his death.

8. Ravens.

Since the time of the Second World War there have also been six ravens at the Tower plus two auxiliaries and they live in nesting boxes situated in the Tower grounds near the Wakefield Tower. The ravens can be seen at four places within the Tower of London which are:

Tower Green: the site of the execuitioners block. The ravens would have witnessed the executions of Anne Boleyn, Walter Raleigh and Thomas More to name but a few.

Tower steps: the construction  of the White Tower, built at the time of William the  Conquer in 1078 would have possibly been observed by the ravens.

Roman Wall: this is the foundation and remains of the old Londinium Roman Wall.

Coldharbour: the site of an early entrance to the Tower.

The birds can be easily by their coloured leg-rings and the names of the present batch (or unkindness) are as follows: Larry, Hardey, Cedric, Gwylum, Munin II, Hugine II, Odin, Thor.

The official term of reference for a flock of ravens in «unkindness», dating back to the ancient use of the word, which meant «unnatural conduct». The  raven has always been regarded as a bird of evil and the word was applied in the mid- 15 th century. It can be found in a list of «proper terms» in the Book of St. Albans, dated 1484.

A prophecy made in Charles II s time said when there are no longer ravens, then both White Tower and Britain will fall. So the ravens are fed, housed and have their wings clipped.

III. Conclusion.

So as we can see the Tower of London is full of wonders. Some of them I have mentioned in my work but there are still many that I have not. The Tower of London  is a very beautiful building with great history. It is impossible to mention all of the interesting facts about the Tower in this work. I would tell the interesting facts about the Tower in this work. I would like to go to London some day and to visit the Tower. I would like to know  more about this magnificent building, to see it with my own eyes, to touch its history. I hope my dream will come true.

IV. Literature.

1. Верещагина  И.Н., Афанасьева О.В. Английский язык. Учебник для IV класса школ с углубленным изучением английсского языка, лицеев, гимназий, колледжей. – М.: Просвещение, 2000.
2.  Верещагина И.Н., Афанасьева О.В. Английский язык. Учебник для V класса школ с углубленным изучением английского языка, лицеев, гимназий, колледжей. – М.: Просвещение, 2001.
3. Голицынский Ю.Б. Great Britain. Пособие по страноведению для старших классов, гимназий и школ с углубленным изучением английского языка. – СПБ.:КАРО, 2002.
4. Ощепкова В.В. , Шустилова И.И. О Британии вкратце. – М.: Лист, 1997.
5. Путеводитель. The Tower of London. London: Historic Royal Palaces, 2002.
6. Синельникова М.В. Это Лондон. География. История. Культура. Достопримечательности: Книга для чтения на английсском языке с вопросами, заданиями и диалогами. – СПБ.: КОРОНА принт, 2002.
7. Томахин Г.Д. Кто есть кто в Британии. Лингвострановедческий справочник. – М.: Просвещение, 2000.
8. Томахин Г.Д. Лондон. Лингвострановедческий справочник. М.: Просвещение, 2000.
9. Хрусталева Л.В., Богородицкая В.Н. Учебник английского языка для IX класса школ с углубленным изучением английского языка, лицеев, гимназий, колледжей. – М.:ВЕРСИЯ, 1997.
10. Цветакова И.В., Клепальченко И.А., Мальцева Н.А. Английский язык для школьников и поступающих в ВУЗы. – М.:ГЛОССА, 1996.