East and West

The southwestern part of England is often called the West Country. Its eastern part is sometimes called Wessex, although you will not find this name on the map. Wessex was really the ancient kingdom of the West Saxons, but it ceased to exist by the time of the Norman Conquest. The name would hardly be used today but for the writer Thomas Hardy who wrote, at the end of the 19th century, a long series of novels set in what had been Wessex. The country town of Dorsetshire is Dorchester, where Thomas Hardy was born. It is Casterbridge of his novels. The western part is occupied by the romantic coastline, with many picturesque fishing villages. The country`s only industry is the production of china clay, from which the famous Wedgwood pottery is made. The china-clay industry is centred in St.Austell, a few miles from the south coast. Exeter is the country town of Devon, and, like so many English cathedral cities, has a prehistoric settlement, Saxon stronghold, and Norman castle. Situated on the river Exe, it was the first point upstream where the river could be bridged, and that made it a natural «capital of the West».

Because of its geographical position, the West Counties` specialization has always been seamanship. As you move westward from London, along the coastline, first you arrive at Portland, which, with its great harbour, has always been an important naval base. Besides, this place is associated with building stone and cement. Portland stone has been used to rebuilt London after the Great Fire. From Plymouth`s harbour Admiral Drake sailed to beat the Spanish Armada and the Pilgrim Fathers embarked on a journey across the ocean to found the first independent colonies in America. Bristol used to be a centre of trade with Europe. Most overseas voyages used to begin here, such as John Cabor`s for the shore of North America to colonize Newfoundland. Later the first passenger steamship intended to cross the Atlantic Ocean was build there. And it was Bristol`s trade with Europe that produced a rather misleading name of Bristol cream, which, unlike Devonshire cream is not a milk product but a sort of sherry that got its name because it was imported into England through Bristol.

The southwestern extreme point of England is the granite 100-feet cliff, which is called Land`s End. Its southeastern extreme point is the fishing town Yarmouth, situated at the mouth of the river Yare in quite a different type of landscape. This region is called East Anglia, but you will not find this name on the map although it is much used in daily conversation. Being in the past the Kingdom of East Angles, the region has been always isolated from the rest of country by the Fens - great swamps where only hermits and political outlaws could live. For many centuries very small areas of land were drained, and only in 1630 the first large - scale project to do it was undertaken. The Earl of Bedford, who owned much of these lands, formed a company to drain the Fens around the Isle of Ely where in the Middle Ages the monks had built the famous Ely Cathedral. Twenty years later a region eighty miles long by thirty miles wide had been turned to pasture and farming land of the richest kind. Here wheat, oats, potato, sugar beets, fruit and flowers are raised on a commercial scale.

The region has a climate which is favourable for farming. Since the 18th century the local farmers have been practising the crops rotation - wheat, root crops, oats, followed by clover or beans. This practice was named «Norfolk rotation», after one of the East Anglia`s counties. The life of Norfolk peasants was the main theme of the so-called Norwich School of Painting, named after the country town of Norfolk - the city of Norwich. This city is also a manufacturing centre, which produces metal and leather goods, textiles and chemicals. The country of Suffolk gave the name to the well-known sort of workhorse, called Suffolk Punch. The western part of East Anglia is occupied by Cambridge shire, whose country town is famous as a site of Cambridge University - one of the two oldest English universities.

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Дата добавления: 2015-10-16