london rtd 76-81
TRANSCRIPT
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London’s Parks
and Museums
Parks
London is one the greenest big cities in the
world. Everywhere you go there is always a park
or garden. There are 387 parks in Greater London!
Most of these green open spaces were once the
parks of royal homes and palaces. Now these lovely
parks belong to the people, and in many parks you can rent
a deck chair 1 and sit on the grass and enjoy the sun or read a
book.
Hyde Park is the best-known of the great royal parks with more than
4,000 trees. It was first owned by the monks 2 of Westminster Abbey
and then by King Henry VIII, who went hunting there. In the 1600s it
was opened to the public and in 1665, during the Great Plague,
many people left the City and went to stay in Hyde Park. The
Serpentine Lake is a big attraction because you can swim in it all
year long or you can rent a boat. You can also go biking or riding in
the park. On Sundays you can listen to people at Speakers’ Corner,
where anyone can talk about any subject. In the summer many fun
events take place in the park. Famous singers and bands often
perform here.
To the west of Hyde Park are Kensington Gardens. They are the
grounds 3 of Kensington Palace, which was the also the home of
1. deck chair : 2. monks :
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DOSSIER
3. grounds : the land around a building.
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Diana, Princess of Wales. These gardens have beautiful fountains
and statues and lots of colourful flowers and plants. The famous
statue of Peter Pan is here and it is a big attraction for everyone who
loves the wonderful story. At the far end of the park is the Round
Pond, where children (and adults!) can play with model boats.
Going east we find one of London’s oldest royal parks, St James’s
Park. In 1532 King Henry VIII bought the land where the park is
today. In 1603 King James I created a park where he kept wild
animals like camels, elephants and birds. In the 1660s King
Charles II asked a French artist to redesign 4 the park, which
was later opened to the public. There is a large lake with
Duck Island, where different kinds of ducks and birds
live. Every afternoon at 2.30 the pelicans 5 are given
fresh fish to eat and it is fun to watch them. On
summer weekends you can listen to concerts in
the park. All around the park you can see some
4. redesign : to design again. 5. pelicans :
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of the country’s most famous places:
Buckingham Palace, The Mall and Whitehall.
Regent’s Park is north of Oxford Street
and it has an Inner and Outer Ring. Within
the Inner Ring are the lovely Queen
Mary’s Gardens and the Open Air Theatre
where Shakespeare’s plays are performed in
the summer. The London Zoo, with over 750
kinds of animals, is in the Outer Ring.
Museums
There are more than 240 museums in London and most of
them are free. Some are small and others are very large, and
they are all fun to visit. Let’s take a look at the most important ones.
The British Museum is one of the largest and most important
museums in the world. It has more than seven million objects from all
over the world: Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and Rome, the
Americas, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. These objects tell the
story of human culture from its beginning to the present. For
example, in the Egyptian Sculpture section you can see the famous
Rosetta Stone, which was the key to reading ancient Egyptian
writing. And in the Greek section you can see the beautiful Parthenon
Sculptures from the Acropolis in Athens.The museum was opened to the public in 1759. During the years
many important objects were added to the collections.
The centre of the museum was redesigned by the famous British
architect Sir Norman Foster, and in 2000 it became the beautiful
Great Court with a glass and steel roof, which surrounds the original
Reading Room. It is the largest covered open space in Europe – it is
bigger than a football field!
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The Natural History Museum is the largest and most important
natural history museum in the world. It has more than 70 million
specimens: 6 animals, insects, birds, plants, rocks and minerals. The
museum is famous for its skeletons of dinosaurs and other big
mammals, and its section on biodiversity. The museum opened in
1881 but its history goes back to the late 1700s, when Captain Cook
brought back many unusual specimens from his trips to the South
Pacific. The museum is on Exhibition Road in South Kensington
near two other famous museums, the Science Museum and the
Victoria and Albert Museum. This area is often called
‘Museum Mile’.The National Gallery is the biggest building on
Trafalgar Square. It was founded in 1924 and has a
world famous collection of over 2,300 paintings
from the mid-13th century to 1900. Almost every
important artist in the world is represented in
The Great Court in British Museum.
6. specimen : a plant or animal which is the exampleof a particular species.
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the wonderful collection – from medieval painters, to the greatRenaissance artists, to the 19th- century impressionists.
If you want to find out more about London’s history from the
prehistoric days up to now, go to the Museum of London in the City.
See what prehistoric London was like in the London Before London
exhibit, which goes back to the year 450,000 BCE!
There is an excellent simulation 7 of the Great Fire of 1666, where
you can see what happened during the fire and how people tried to
put it out. You can also hear about different people’s adventures
during the disaster. Near the museum you can see the old Roman
city wall.
7. simulation : something that shows you how the real thing was.
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Natural History Museum: diplodocus skeleton.
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Are these sentences true (T) or false (F)? Correct the false ones.
T F
1 Most of the parks in London belong to the Royal family.2 The Serpentine Lake is in Hyde Park.
3 Speakers’ Corner is near the statue of Peter Pan.
4 Wild animals lived in St James’s Park in the early 1600s.
5 Only pelicans live on Duck Island.
6 You can see a big collection of paintings
at the British Museum.
7 The largest covered open space in Europe is insidethe British Museum.
8 Many of Captain Cook’s unusual specimens are
at the Natural History Museum.
INTERNET PROJECT
Let’s visit the Tate Online!
Tate Britain is a world famous gallery of British art founded in 1897on Millbank in London. It is one of the four Tate galleries in Great
Britain: Tate Modern, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. Divide the
class into two groups; one can do research and a report on Tate
Britain and the other can do the same on Tate Modern.
In your report remember to include:
• visitor information
• the collections
• the special exhibitions
• any other interesting
news
Present your report to the
class. Did you recognize any
of the paintings? If so, which
ones? Which Tate did you
like best and why?
1
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