Appendix VI
Lesson 2
THE READING TEXT
The Tower of London is quite large, and lots of neat things
have happened here. It was built a long time ago by a
Frenchman called William the Conquerer (that's him over
on the left) who came over to England in the year 1066 -that's almost a 1,000 years ago! He wanted to build a castle
inside of a big fort so that future kings could live here.
After he died other kings built smaller towers and walls
around the castle William had built, and all the buildings
together became known as the Tower of London.
Later on King Richard I,
dug a big ditch around it
and filled it with water
from the River Thames,
and he called that a moat.
Maybe some of you have
built a sandcastle and
scooped out the sand
around it and filled it
with water. That’s what
they did at the Tower of
London. This made it a
very good place for the
kings and queens to live
because their enemies
couldn't get into the fort
to attack them.
Nobody could get into the Tower of London unless they had permission from the
people who were inside. If they wanted to let anyone in they would lower a wooden
bridge on chains across the moat, and then the people could just walk
across. This bridge was called a drawbridge. If they didn't lower the
drawbridge the only way a person could get into the castle w