Introducing Great Britain (материалы по страноведению Великобритании)
учебно-методический материал по английскому языку (9, 10, 11 класс)

EDINBURGH

Edinburgh, capital of Scotland, is one of Britain’s most attractive cities.

It’s a city for people who like to walk. You are never far from green parks, gardens and hills - even in the main shopping streets. It’s a busy modern city, but history is everywhere. At the top of the highest hill in Edinburgh is Edinburgh Castle. Soldiers have marched through its gates for nearly a thousand years. It was the home of Scotland’s royal family until the year 1603 when King James the Sixth of Scotland became king of England as well and went south to live in London.

The most famous road in Edinburgh is called the Royal Mile. It begins at the castle and goes eastwards. Off the Royal Mile you can explore old narrow streets on foot. You’ll find some interesting shops.

The kilt, the most important part of Scotland’s national dress, is made from tartan cloth. To make a kilt takes eight metres of tartan cloth. Kilts are worn by men and women, but a man’s kilt has a pocket made from leather and silver. It’s worn in front and it’s called a sporran. For a souvenir, how about a tartan hat? Or perhaps a useful tartan umbrella.

Bagpipes are the national instrument of Scotland. Craftsmen make the wooden pipes in their workshops. The bag is made of leather and covered in tartan.

At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Palace of Holyroodhouse. It was built by a Scottish king before Scotland and England were united to make Great Britain. Now Holyroodhouse is a second home for the British king or queen, who usually visits Edinburgh in the summer. When the royal family is not there, you can visit the palace. You can see the staterooms and walk around the gardens and the ruins of the abbey, a much older building.

Behind Holyroodhouse is one of Edinburgh’s nine hills. One of them is a long-dead volcano; it’s called King Arthur’s Seat. From the top you can look northwards to the great river, the Firth of Forth, and the road bridge which crosses it. The road bridge is modern, but the rail bridge is quite old. It has carried trains to the Highlands for more than a hundred years.

Each year, at the end of August, the two-week Edinburgh International Festival is held. This festival has become famous not only for the high quality of the orchestras, opera companies, theatre groups, exhibitions and events which form the main programme, but also for the hundreds of smaller performances and displays by young actors, artists, singers and comedians which make up the "'fringe" of the festival.

THE HIGHLANDS OF SCOTLAND

Scotland is divided geographically and socially into two area - the Highlands (towards the north and west) and the Lowlands (the south and east). The Highlands is a mountainous region and the Highland Scots are tough mountain people. These are the areas of Scotland where the Scottish language (known as "Gaelic") is most widely spoken.

The Highlanders are proud people with a strong sense of tradition and family unity. They are grouped in tribes or "clans", each of which has its own distinctive tartan.

Scotland is famous for its summer games. Some people call them the Scottish Olympics. The real name is the Highland Games. These games are not only sporting competitions: here music is as important as sport - the music of the pipes and drums and traditional Scottish sports like the tug-of-war.

The most famous of these summer games is the one at Braemar, watched by the royal family. But nearly a hundred smaller games are held between May and September all over Scotland.

While athletes throw the hammer at one end of the arena, you can watch a dancing competition at the other end. The most popular Scottish dances are the Highland fling and the sword dance. The dancers, pipers, athletes, in fact nearly all the competitors at the Highland games wear a kilt. So also do the judges, and the soldiers in the military pipe bands.

Tossing the caber is a sport for the strongest athletes. Each caber weighs about sixty kilos and is six metres long. The caber must not fall back towards the athlete; it must fall forwards.

Highland Scotland is mountainous and wild. In winter the mountains are white with snow. In summer the heather plants give them a purple colour. About 300,000 red deer live in this part of Britain. These Highland cattle grow long thick coats in the winter.

Between the mountains are rivers and lakes. The Scottish word for lake is ‘loch’. You’ve probably heard of the monster of Loch Ness!

Off the west coast of Scotland there are more than fifty islands. The main port for boats to the islands is Oban, a fishing port, where crabs are plentiful. The crabs don’t look very appetising when they arrive at the harbour, but they’re delicious in sandwiches. Fishing means work for some people; for others it means sport. Scotland’s deep lochs are full of large fish, but the biggest fish are the famous Scottish salmon, and they are found in the rivers. You need skill and experience to catch a salmon. They are difficult to catch and very strong.

Scottish rivers are good for two things: fishing is one, the other is Scotch whisky (the Irish drink is spelt "whiskey"). Scotch whisky means "the water of life". It is made from water and barley. The method hasn’t changed for hundreds of years. It is important to remember that the people are "Scots" or "Scottish". "Scotch" refers to whisky!

Many writers have used the Highlands as the setting for poems, plays and novels. Perhaps the most famous is the historical novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771 -1832) who wrote Rob Roy, Ivanhoe, Oiienlin Dunrard.

THE LAKE DISTRICT

The Lake District is a beautiful part of Britain and many writers, poets and artists have lived here (such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), Robert Southey (1774-1843), Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) and others.

The most famous was the poet, William Wordsworth. Wordsworth loved nature and often wrote poetry in the mountains or on Grasmere, the lake near his home.

/ wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils:

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Wordsworth and the other Lake Poets made the lakes famous. Since the nineteenth century, passenger boats have carried visitors up and down Lake Windermere - England’s largest lake. At the north end of Lake Windermere is Ambleside. It’s an interesting little town and a good centre for a holiday.

The Lake District is now a National Park and there are severe restrictions on buildings and development. The area is very popular with mountaineers, walkers and painters. The lakes are used for various types of water sports including sailing, canoeing and windsurfing.

The best way to explore the Lake District is on foot. You need a good map and a good pair of walking shoes. In summer all kinds of water sports are popular. In winter you can usually skate on the ice. Even in spring climbers and walkers may need an ice axe in the mountains.

The highest mountains in the district are only a thousand metres above sea level but the weather can be dangerously cold and stormy. On lower ground the weather is often wet even in summer. But you don’t come here for fine weather; people come here for beautiful scenery, for clean fresh air and to enjoy the lakes.

Dolly is the oldest steam boat in the world. She’s about 150 years old and still working. Dolly sank in 1895 and spent sixty-seven years at the bottom of a lake. Then in 1962 she was raised and repaired.

Osprey was built in 1902. You can see Dolly and Osprey and many others if you visit the Windermere Steamboat Museum. Osprey still carries visitors around the lake - just as she did a hundred years ago in the days before petrol engines. Osprey has a Windermere steam kettle which can boil five litres of water in twenty seconds. There are not many places in Britain where you can’t get a cup of tea!

OXFORD

Oxford (population about 115,000) is the county town of Oxfordshire in south central England. It was the home of William R. Morris (1877-1963) who later became Lord Nuffield. As a boy he started work in a bicycle repair shop but later became more interested in cars. In 1910, at the age of 33, he started Morris Motors which produced low cost cars for the general public. The factories of Morris Motors soon became the most important industry in Oxford. The company is well known for the Morris Mini designed by Alec Issigonis and first produced in the 1960s.

These towers and spires are part of Oxford University, the oldest university in Britain. Students have been coming here for eight hundred years. It began in the twelfth century with small groups of teachers giving lessons in churches. Today the university is a federation of thirty-five colleges with hundreds of buildings and a total of 12,000 students.

It’s a place of young people and old traditions: here teachers are called dons and still wear black gowns. Students are taught one-to-one in the Socratic tradition. At the university library you can still see notices written in Latin - the ancient language of scholars. Students at Oxford are surrounded by beautiful stone buildings and by reminders of the university’s long history and old traditions.

Hertford College is one of the smaller colleges in the university. About two hundred students live and work here. But life at Oxford is not all work: There are clubs and societies for every interest and every kind of sport. Since the town is quite small and flat, most students travel around the city by bicycle.

The Sheldonian Theatre is used for concerts and university ceremonies. Opposite the Sheldonian is the most famous shop in Oxford, where students and dons buy books. There are books on every subject and one of the largest book rooms in the world, with seven kilometres of shelves.

Oxford has a large number of pubs and cafes, where you can buy cheap food or have a drink with friends. In termtime they are full of students; in summer the tourists take over.

Two rivers flow slowly through the city and past the colleges. This boat is called a punt. If you visit Oxford or Cambridge, you should try punting on the river - it’s fun, but it’s not as easy as it looks.

You should also visit some of the beautiful gardens in and around Oxford. This garden has a maze. First you must find the centre of the maze. It can take quite a long time. And it’s just as difficult to find the way out!

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

North of Oxford the River Avon runs through the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, the birthplace of England’s greatest poet and dramatist.

To be, or not to be: that is the question:

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them?

William Shakespeare spent most of his working life in London, but he grew up in this house in Stratford, and he returned to Stratford in his old age.

Little is known about his early life. He was still a teenager when he married Anne Hathaway. They lived in a thatched cottage and had three children. Then, at the age of twenty-four, Shakespeare left for London, where he became one of the greatest dramatists of all time. His most important work as an actor, poet and dramatist was done in London between 1592 and 1613. In this period he wrote or contributed to nearly forty full-length plays. In 1613, at the age of 49, he retired to Stratford-upon-Avon where he bought a large house. Three years later he died on his birthday (23rd April) at the age of 52.

WALES

About 700 years ago Wales (population now about 2,807,000) was conquered by the English, but it has remained culturally distinct from England through its language. The English conquest of Wales was completed in 1282 by the English King Edward I. He started the tradition of giving the title "Prince of Wales" to the eldest son of the English king. Prince Charles, the Queen's eldest son, is the present Prince of Wales.

Wales is a land of green hills, forests and farms. Most of the people speak English but there is also a Welsh language and a Welsh culture. Every year in August, in an enormous tent, there’s a national festival of Welsh music, poetry, dance and song. The festival is called the Eisteddfod. Eisteddfod is a Welsh word which means a meeting.

The choirs are singing the same song as the first choir because the Eisteddfod is a competition. At the end of the festival, the winners will be chosen.

Folk dancing is still popular in Wales and it’s an important part of the National Eisteddfod. In this folk dancing group the women are wearing the tall black hats and long dresses of the Welsh national costume.

In the north of Wales you can follow mountain paths for miles and miles. It’s a good place to learn climbing too and to enjoy all kinds of outdoor activities. A good way to see Wales is on horseback, and you don’t have to be an expert rider. You can get away from the crowds and ride through woods and green hillsides with streams and waterfalls flowing down into the valleys.

The Welsh name for these falls is Rhaeadr Ewynnol. It means ‘Swallow Falls’. They are at Bettws у Coed, which means ‘a warm place in the wood’.

This is the view from the top of a hill called Great Orme’s Head on the north coast. It’s a long hard climb to the top, but if you prefer you can take the tram. Llandudno, the town where the tram begins its climb, is a popular seaside resort.

Near Llandudno is Conwy, where the River Conwy flows into the sea. In the past, Conwy’s harbour was busy with fishing boats and boats exporting copper and slates. Now they are mostly pleasure boats. But there are still a few fishermen left and you can still buy fish that is fresh from the sea.

Everyone in Wales can speak English but about 20 per cent of the people use both English and Welsh. The Welsh language is now used for Welsh television channel and is taught to all pupils in Welsh schools. The signs in Wales are in Welsh and in English.

About seven hundred years ago Edward the First, the English king, conquered Wales. He built strong stone castles to show his power.

BATH

Bath (population about 84,300) is in the county of Avon in the south west of England. It is an unusual city because it was built for leisure and health. Most of its elegant houses were built in the eighteenth century, when Bath became a fashionable spa - a place where rich people came to drink the healthy water that rises up here from deep underground. The taste of the water is very unpleasant since it contains many sulphurous salts. No doubt this unpleasant taste convinced the people that it was good for them. This habit of drinking or bathing in mineral waters led to the establishment of many spas around Britain although many are no longer used. Later people became interested in the value of sea water and seaside resorts like Brighton were established.

The houses in Bath were built with the pale golden-coloured stone from the nearby hills. The work of artists in stone, both ancient and modern can be seen all over the city.

Some of the terraces in Bath were built in a crescent or circular shape. The first terrace ever built as a crescent is called the Royal Crescent.

The elegant classical buildings and broad streets replaced older houses.

Sally Lunn was a street seller of cakes and buns who invented a new kind of bun. Buns are eaten with tea, and tea is important to the British.

Some of Bath’s streets are closed to cars, so walking around, relaxation and pleasant conversation are as popular as they were in the eighteenth century. In those days the favourite meeting place - the social centre of Bath - was a building called the Pump Room. Nowadays you can drink tea here in the elegant atmosphere of the eighteenth century. The Pump Room was built over a spring, where natural hot water comes up from underground. This water contains many minerals which are good for you. Every day one million litres pour out of the ground at a temperature of 49 degrees centigrade.

The English were not the first to enjoy this warm, healthy water. Nearly two thousand years ago the Romans built hot baths, swimming pools, and a temple here. After the Romans left Britain, their buildings disappeared under new buildings and streets. But when the great Roman bath was found in 1878, its metal pipes were still working and its stone columns were still supporting the street above it. These eighteenth-century bathers did not know that a bigger Roman bath lay hidden nearby.

The River Avon which flows through Bath is not the same river which flows through Stratford-upon-Avon. "Avon" is an old word which means "river" and so the name appears in different places. The bridge over the river was inspired by a famous Italian bridge in Florence.

Near Bath you can visit beautiful gardens and classical country houses.

The Kennet and Avon Canal connects Bath in the west of England to London in the east. A canal boat holiday is a good way to see the English countryside. Beside the canal you can stop at old country pubs for good cheap food or to enjoy a chat and a drink in the cosy atmosphere.

In summer, cricket is played in towns and villages all over England.

There’s a lot to see in this part of England; the oldest monument is Stonehenge, built three thousand years before the Romans came. Stonehenge is a circle of enormous cut stones (up to 50 tonnes in weight) some of which were transported all the way from Wales. The purpose of this construction is not known but it probably had a religious and astronomic purpose.

BRIGHTON

Only sixty kilometres from London, Brighton’s nickname in the nineteenth century was ‘London-by-the-Sea’. Brighton was, and still is, one of Britain’s most popular seaside resorts. Queen Victoria was rather too serious to enjoy Brighton, but an earlier king, George the Fourth, made Brighton fashionable two hundred years ago. The palace that he built here is called the Royal Pavilion. It was a fantasy palace — not a palace for serious business, but for pleasure, built in the style of an Indian palace with tall minarets, oriental decoration and onion-like domes. Inside, the rooms are richly decorated in Chinese style. George was called the Prince of Pleasure. He came here to enjoy himself and to escape from the formal life of the court in London.

Now elegant buildings stand beside popular seaside entertainments. This mixture gives Brighton its special character.

Along the sea front is the promenade, where deck chairs can be hired. Extending out over the sea is the old pier, a palace of fun and traditional seaside entertainment since 1901.

Rock is a kind of sweet. It’s very hard and tastes of peppermint sugar.

The place where you can buy the traditional British take-away snack is called the chippy.

Along beside the beach goes the oldest electric train in Britain. It was first used in 1883 - long before the days of the bikini and the all-over suntan.

In the oldest part of Brighton you can see old fishermen’s cottages that are now antique shops, pubs and cafes.

In the countryside near Brighton are the gentle hills of the South Downs. Across them runs a footpath 130 kilometres long and thousands of years old. It ends on these chalk cliffs known as the Seven Sisters. White cliffs like these are the first and last sight of land for visitors who come to Britain by sea.