a brief history of no_10 downing street 英国唐令街10号
The first domestic house known to have been built on the site of Number 10 was a large dwelling leased to Sir Thomas Knyvet, a Parliamentarian and Justice of the Peace. It was Knyvet who arrested Guy Fawkes for the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. After his death the house passed to his niece, Mrs. Hampden, the aunt of Oliver Cromwell.
The front part of the house we see today, and the adjoining house at Number Eleven, were built by a Harvard graduate and property speculator called George Downing. He acquired rights to the site during the brief period of Parliamentary rule in the 17th Century. A portrait of the man, who was widely regarded as a profiteering rogue, now hangs in the Entrance Hall.
The very ordinary address and the modest terraced face are deceptive, giving little clue to the real size and grandeur within. Number Ten in fact consists of two houses. The house which faces Downing Street is a typical late 17th century town house. But it conceals a complicated building which was refronted in the 18th C and enlarged in the 20th C. A corridor joins this house to what was once a mansion in its own right, with a walled garden and a view
风景名胜介绍across Horse Guards' Parade. The two houses were joined in 1732 when the property became an official government residence. Sir Robert Walpole moved in in 1735, replacing the last tenant, Mr Chicken.
At the time Walpole was First Lord of the Treasury and was informally seen as the first British Prime Minister. Walpole secured the property as a residence for all future First Lords of the Treasury. Today the Prime Minister still resides at Downing Street by right as First Lord of the Treasury, and accordingly his title adrorns the letter-box on the famous black front door.
The house has seen much restoration, alteration and tinkering over the years. It has changed to accommodate new functions for the building, the fashions of the times, the tastes of its occupants and sometimes even urgent need to shore up the very structure of the house itself.
Prime Ministers have overseen great changes both within and without the house. This has given the house a different atmosphere almost every generation. Viscount Goderich ordere
d the creation of a large dining room at No.10 in the 1820s. The houses on the South side of the street were pulled down in the 1860s to be replaced by the great buildings of state which now overshadow the modest terrace. Electricity replaced gas and candlelight in 1894, and telephones arrived soon after this. In the early 1960s major restructuring work was carried out in order to save the building from collapse and to create a better working environment for staff. In 1988-89 the architect Quinlan Terry was brought in to enrich the decoration of the drawing rooms. And in 1993-95 computer cabling, which has greatly changed the way No.10 staff perform their day-to-day duties, was installed.
Number 10 Downing Street stands close to the site of what was once the palace of Whitehall. This was an enormous rambling collection of buildings and gardens confiscated from Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII. It served as the official residence of the Monarch until it was destroyed by fire in 1698. The only part of the palace of Whitehall that remains is the Banqueting House, a spectacular building that can be visited and is almost opposite Downing Street on Whitehall.
arlington national cemetery 美国阿灵顿国家公墓
Across the Potomac River in Arlington, Virginia; closest Metro Arlington Cemetery. April¨CSept daily 8am¨C7pm; rest of year daily 8am¨C5pm.
A poignant contrast to the grand monuments of the capital is provided by the vast sea of identical white headstones on the hillsides of Arlington National Cemetery. The country's most honoured final resting place was first used during the Civil War, when the grand mansion at the top of the hill, and all the surrounding land, belonged to Confederate leader Robert E Lee. Nearly 200,000 US war dead lie here, and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier remembers thousands more whose bodies were never recovered or identified. An eternal flame marks the grave of President John F Kennedy, near his brother Robert and, as of 1994, next to his widow, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Among other well-known names is Pierre L'Enfant, whose grave site offers a superb view over the Mall and the District he designed; while the new Women in Military Service Memorial, by the main gate, is just one of several high-profile memorials to celebrated personnel, like the doomed crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Unless you have strong legs and lots of time, the best way to see the vast cemetery is by Tourmobile, which leaves from the visitor center at the entrance. You can also walk here from the Lincoln Memorial across the Arlington Bridge.
Buckingham Palace 英国白金汉宫
The graceless colossus of Buckingham Palace, popularly known as "Buck House", has served as the monarch's permanent London residence only since the accession of Victoria. Bought by George III in 1762, the building was overhauled by Nash in the late 1820s, and again by Aston Webb in time for George V's coronation in 1913, producing a palace that's about as bland as it's possible to be.
For two months of the year, the hallowed portals are grudgingly nudged open; timed tickets are sold from the tent-like box office in Green Park at the western end of The Mall. The interior, however, is a bit of an anticlimax: of the palace's 660 rooms you're permitted to see just 18, and there's little sign of life, as the Queen decamps to Scotland every summer. For the other ten months of the year there's little to do here, since the palace is closed to visitor
s ¨C not that this deters the crowds who mill around the railings, and gather in some force to watch the Changing of the Guard, in which a detachment of the Queen's Foot Guards marches to appropriate martial music from St James's Palace (unless it rains, that is).
You can view a small selection of the Royal Collection ¨C which is more than three times larger than the National Gallery's ¨C at the Queen's Picture Gallery (daily 9.30am¨C4.30pm; ¡ê4), round the south side of the palace on Buckingham Palace Road. The exhibitions usually include some works by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Vermeer, Rubens, Rembrandt and Canaletto, which make up the bulk of the collection.
There's more pageantry on show at the Nash-built Royal Mews (April¨CSept Tues¨CThurs noon¨C4pm; Oct¨CDec Wed only; ¡ê3.50), further along Buckingham Palace Road. The royal carriages, lined up under a glass canopy in the courtyard, are the main attraction, in particular the Gold Carriage, made for George III in 1762, smothered in 22-carat gilding and weighing four tons, its axles supporting four life-size figures.
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