A glimpse of london's past

More than two thousand years ago the early Britons established a settlement on the north bank of the Thames. The site had many advantages. It was defended on two sides by rivers. It lay in the centre of the most fertile region. The old Britons gave the town its name, Llyndin, which means a lonely port. In the first century Britain was conquered, and for 400 years remained a Roman province. Llindin became Londinium. The Romans build long straight roads along which the Roman soldiers marched: Watling Street from London to Chester, Ermine Street from London to York and others. The Romans made Londinium a large and rich city with good streets, beautiful palaces, shops and villas. Trade was growing. A lot of goods - skins, copper, iron and ore, silver and gold were sent to Rome. And many strong blue-eyed youths were sent to Rome, too, to be sold as slaves.

In the fifth century the Romans left Britain. The Saxon hordes and the Danes rushed to Londinium, conquered the land and ruined the city. Little was left of its great past. Parts of the ancient wall built by the Romans in the second century remain in the City, and the London Stone placed by the Romans in the centre of Londinium, from which all distances were measured. During nearly 400 years Londinium lay in ruins, grass grew where the beautiful buildings had been before, wild beasts walked on the good Roman roads. In the 9 th century and later the Saxon kings began to rebuild the ruined city of Londinium. Soon, two miles west from it, another centre, Westminster Abbey was founded. In 1066 William the Duke of Normandy or William the Conqueror came. He settled in Londinium which now become London- the capital of Norman Britain. For 500 years the Normans were masters of Britain. They brought with them Latin and French civilization, the learning, the laws and the organization of the land. Many Latin and French words penetrated into the old English language. The Norman masters went everywhere about the country building new palaces and churches and cathediils. Simple wooden halls were good enough for the poor Britons, stone and marble were used by the Normans. The ideas were Norman, the labour was British. Westminster Abbey was finished and William was the first king to be crowned there. Since then, for nearly 1000 years, all English monarchs have been crowned in the Abbey. Many of them are buried there too.

By the 17 th century London become a busy, rich and crowded city. More than 400 000 people lived within the London walls. The old city looked very picturesque with its tall houses of wood and plaster. Lots of ships came to London daily. On one of them, together with some goods, the Great Plague had arrived in London. People fell ill one after another and in a few days died. Whole families died. All life in London was at a standstill, the ships stopped coming, the streets were empty and grass grew between the stones. By the end of summer there were not enough people alive to bury the dead. In a few months nearly 100 000 died, about 1/5 of the population. But poor London! A year after the plague, in 1666, another misfortune came down. It was the Great Fire. A young and careless baker left a small bundle of wood at night near a very hot oven. In a few hours big flames were seen all along the narrow street. All the houses made of wood were burning like paper and soon three thousand houses were in flames. Some people took all their things to the churches hoping that they would be safe there. But nearly all the churches were destroyed in the flames, including the great building of St. Paul's Cathedral. Soon the wind changed, stopped blowing and a heavy rain fell. London, what was left of it, was saved. The fire cleared away the old and dirty houses. It cleared away the Plague fop-ever. And a new London, London of stone and bricks with better houses, wider streets and squares was built. In 1829 the London buses first came on the streets of London. Those were horse-drawn omnibuses. Seven years later, in 1836, the first railway came to London. The first London underground tunnel was under the Thames- from one bank to the other. In 1870 the first Tube Railway in the world was opened. The total length of modern underground in London is 250 miles.

• You know that history has some dark pages and some remarkable events. May be London 's past also has some dark pages and some remarkable events. Discuss it in your groups and fill in the following chart.

Dark pages of London 's past (+)	Remarkable events of London 's past (-)

Дата добавления: 2015-10-31