Дворец Хэмптон Корт - восьмое чудо света.
проект по английскому языку (8 класс)

Муниципальное автономное общеобразовательное учреждение

«Средняя общеобразовательная школа №12 имени Олега Кошевого»

Проектная работа по теме

«Восьмое чудо света»

Работу выполнили ученики 8 «Б» класса:

Гигашвили Илья,

Пархоменко Валерия,

Якубовский Илья

Руководители:

Вавилова Александра Игоревна,

Юхнина Елена Владимировна

Сыктывкар

2017

Contents

I.        Introduction………………………………………………………………...3

1)        Topicality

2)        Methods of research

3)        Aim and objectives

II.        Main part………………….…….…………………………………………..4

1)        The history of Hampton Court palace

2)        Gardens and the Maze

3)        Mystery of the palace

III.        Conclusion…………………….…………………………………………….8

IV.        Sources ……………………………………………………………………...9

I.        Introduction

There is no country in the world where there are so many (over 500) ancient castles and fortresses. Castles of Britain is a historical treasure that can tell us about the lives of heroes and ordinary people of the great Empire. The owners of the most ancient and mysterious castles are Royal families, some aristocrats, or those who received the estate as inheritance. Each castle is unique and has its mystical legend. England is even called "island of the spirits", because this country's history is connected with stories about ghosts.

Castles and palaces of the United Kingdom have attracted the attention of thousands of people for many centuries. Students at school don't get enough knowledge about castles and palaces, however it broadens students outlook.

The aim of our project was to study information about the Hampton Court palace in the UK. We decided to create booklets because it is very interesting and unusual to find information in booklets. This type of work helps to awake students’ interest and draw their attention to splendid places in English – speaking countries.

We used different methods: literature analysis, problem-searching method, systematization and generalization.

II.        Main part.

Our project is called «The eighth wonder of the world». This is what King Henry VIII told his cardinal Thomas Wolsey when he first saw the Hampton Court palace. It is situated 18 km far from London and it’s very popular with tourists. The palace was built in 1514. Later in 1529 it was presented to the king and since then it has been the dearest residence for all British monarchs.

Thomas Wolsey, Archbishop of York, Chief Minister and a favourite of Henry VIII, took over the site of Hampton Court Palace in 1514. It had previously been a property of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Over the following seven years, Wolsey spent much money to build the finest palace in England at Hampton Court. Today, little of Wolsey's building work remains unchanged. Over seven centuries the powerful owners of Hampton court have changed the palace according to their demands or tastes.

To accommodate the King, Wolsey built a great new courtyard and a long gallery overlooking new gardens. Being a cardinal he also created a new chapel for state processions. However, Wolsey was only to enjoy his palace for a few years. The King started to take a personal interest in the palace; besides the Cardinal started losing his positions as he couldn’t manage to organize a divorce between Henry and his wife Katherine of Aragon. In 1528, knowing that his enemies and the King were engineering his downfall, he passed the palace to the King as a gift. Wolsey died two years later in 1530. Within six months of coming into ownership, the King began his own rebuilding and expansion. Henry VIII's court consisted of over one thousand people, while the King owned over sixty houses and palaces. Few of these were large enough to hold the assembled court, and thus one of the first of the King's building works (in order to transform Hampton Court to a principal residence) was to build the vast kitchens. Nowadays they are the largest surviving Renaissance kitchens in Europe; a vast ‘food factory’ that once served the Tudor court with over 1,200 meals a day.

Between 1532 and 1535 Henry added the Great Hall (the last medieval great hall built for the English monarchy) and the Royal Tennis Court. The Great Hall has a carved hammer-beam roof. During Tudor times, this was the most important room of the palace; here, the King would dine in state seated at a table upon a raised dais. The hall took five years to complete; so impatient was the King for completion that the masons were compelled to work throughout the night by candlelight.

The gatehouse to the second, inner court was adorned in 1540 with the Hampton Court astronomical clock, an early example of a pre-Copernican astronomical clock. Still functioning, the clock shows the time of day, the phases of the moon, the month, the quarter of the year, the date, the sun and star sign, and high water at London Bridge. The latter information was of great importance to those visiting this Thames-side palace from London, as the preferred method of transport at the time was by barge, and at low water London Bridge created dangerous rapids. This gatehouse is also known today as Anne Boleyn's gate, after Henry's second wife. Work was still underway on Anne Boleyn's apartments above the gate when Boleyn was beheaded.

During the Tudor period, the palace was the scene of many historic events. In 1537, the King's much desired male heir, the future Edward VI, was born at the palace and the child's mother, Jane Seymour, died there two weeks later. Four years afterwards, whilst attending Mass in the palace's chapel, the King was informed of the adultery of his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. She was then confined to her room for a few days before being sent to Syon House and then on to the Tower of London. Legend claims she briefly escaped her guards and ran through The Haunted Gallery to beg Henry for her life but she was recaptured.

King Henry died in January 1547 and was succeeded first by his son Edward VI, and then by both his daughters in turn. It was to Hampton Court that Queen Mary I (Henry's elder daughter) retreated with King Philip to spend her honeymoon, after their wedding at Winchester. Mary chose Hampton Court as the place for the birth of her first child, which turned out to be the first of two phantom pregnancies. Mary had initially wanted to give birth at Windsor Castle as it was a more secure location, and she was still fearful of rebellion. But Hampton Court was considerably larger, and could accommodate the entire court and more besides. Mary stayed at the Palace awaiting the birth of the "child" for over five months, and only left because of the inhabitable state of the court being kept in the one location for so long, after which her court departed for the much smaller palace of Oatlands. Mary was succeeded by her half-sister, Elizabeth I, and it was Elizabeth who had the eastern kitchen built; today, this is the palace's public tea room.

Hampton Court combines different styles of architecture. It amazes not only by its size and outside beauty but also by gorgeous inside interior. The palace is surrounded by many beautiful parks and gardens. There you can visit Great Fountain garden, the Privy garden, the Pond garden, the Rose garden and many others. But the most popular entertainment is the Maze.

Hampton Court Maze is a hedge maze planted sometime between 1689 and 1695 by George London and Henry Wise for William III of Orange at Hampton Court Palace. The maze covers a third of an acre and contains half a mile of paths. It is possible that the current design replaced an earlier maze planted for Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. It was originally planted with hornbeam, although it has been repaired using many different types of hedge.

The maze is in 60 acres (0.2 km2) of riverside gardens. It has been described by many authors, including Defoe, and the humorist Jerome K. Jerome, who wrote in Three Men in a Boat.

Of course, there are many larger and more elaborate mazes nowadays. Anyway, it’s widely visited by tourists every day. It is constructed is the following way: you enter the Maze and in a few seconds get lost. After hundreds of attempts you manage to find its center. There is no way out of the Maze, so after taking a photo in the center of it, you can leave it through an extra exit.

The Maze is situated in one of the gardens around the palace. It has a charming name – the Wilderness. In the springtime it’s a wild sea of daffodils and flowering bulbs, which was a very formal garden originally. Nowadays it looks like a wild, a bit scary area with a mysterious maze.

The palace attracts not only by its beauty but also by mystery. Some say they have seen ghosts in the rooms of Hampton Court. The first ghost is a spirit of Henry’s third wife who died in the palace. She gave a birth to the only Henry’s son and soon died. The king deeply loved Jane Seymour and couldn’t let her go. So, her spirit stayed in their home forever. The second ghost belongs to a nurse Sybil Penn who died from smallpox. She took care of young queen Elizabeth I, king Henry’s second daughter.

Sybil Penn, also known as the Grey Lady of Hampton Court, is one of the palace’s many ghosts. Several sightings of the Grey Lady have been reported in various areas of the castle. She was a servant to the Tudor monarchs of the house and a nurse to Prince Edward, as well as Elizabeth I. She cared for the future queen while she was sick with small pox, only to die later of the same disease.

Henry’s third wife entered the palace as the king’s favourite wife. She promised to give him the most desired thing in the world – a male heir. She provided her promise in 1537. Unfortunately, the young queen passed soon after childbirth. The king was nearly mad after this had happened. He couldn’t and refused to believe that he had lost the wife whom he loved and adored so dearly. Perhaps, that’s the reason for her spirit staying in the castle.

Does this ghost belong to Jane Seymour or Catherine Howard, kings fifth wife? The poor lady was less than twenty when she was executed for adultery. Here, in Hampton Court, she had a number of lovers behind the king’s back. He became aware of the fact and that made him furious. She was imprisoned in one of the chapels of the palace but some say she managed to escape from the guards. She was sure if she could reach the king, he would see her youth and beauty and move to pity. But wonders don’t happen. Poor Catherine Howard was beheaded in the Tower of London in 1542. Could she return to the place where the king adored her and where she was so happy being the queen?

The ghostly figure captured on CCTV which people has since called “Skeleton” has been reported worldwide. The image was captured in the winter of 2003 while security staff reviewed CCTV footage. Security staff saw that on the first day, doors swung wide open with so much force, but nothing can be seen which could have caused such an occurrence. On the second day, doors swung wide open again and this time a ghostly figure can be seen which many believed to be the ghost of King Henry VIII, but many people have since named the spirit “Skeleton”. On the third day the doors swung again, but nothing was seen again.  It was not just the security staff who reported seeing something strange. A visitor wrote on the palace’s visitor book that she thought she had also seen the apparition of a large man near the same doors.

III.        Conclusion.

Our booklet contains information about the history of this amazing palace, its ghosts, gardens and the Maze. If you’re interested in it, you can find out more about Hampton Court visiting the websites and reading books presented on the cover of our booklet. It’s the first in the series of booklets about palaces with mazes. The following ones will present information about: Leeds Castle, Hever Castle, Longleat House. All these castles possess a rich and interesting history. As well as in Hampton Court, there are legends and mysteries connected with them.

IV.        Sources.

1.Коути Е. Великобритания –страна замков, дворцов и парков – М.: Вече, 2012.  

2.Ермакова С.О. Исторический центр Лондона. – М.: Вече, 2008. – С. 176-181.

3.Бретт Долман Explore Hampton Court Palace – Лондон.: Historic Royal Palaces, 2016. -76 с.

4.Сара Килби, Клэр Мэрфи Свидетели исторических событий – Лондон.: Издание фонда исторических королевских дворцов, 2013. – с.68-69

5. A pictorial guide to London – Лондон.: Bonechi, 2011. – 65 c.

6. Википедия. – [Электронный ресурс]. – Режим доступа. – URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hampton_Court_Palace  (Дата обращения: 14.12.2017).