Вестминстер \english\

Westminster

The
political centre of London is Westminster. It is the part of London where there
are a lot of offices. If you go down Whitehall from Trafalgar Square on the
right you will see a small street where the British Prime Minister lives. He
lives at number 10 Downing Street. Whitehall is a wide street leading to
Parliament Square. This square is very large. On the left you can see a long
grey building with towers which are the Houses of Parliament.

   The large
clock in one of the towers is Big Ben. Big Ben is the name of the clock and the
bell of the clock tower of the Houses of Parliament. You can hear the sound of
Big Ben every hour in London. The clock and the bell got their names after Sir
Benjamin Hall. He was a tall man, whose nickname was Big Ben. So people know
the clock as Big Ben. The Thames is behind the Houses of Parliament and the
bridge across it is a Westminster Bridge.

   On the other
side of Parliament Square is Westminster Abbey. It is one the most famous and
beabtiful churches in London. It is very old too. It is more than nine hundred
years old. There are so many monuments and statues there. Many English kings
and queens are buried there. Westminster Abbey is famous for its Poet's Comer
too. Many great writers are buried there: for example, Charles Dickens and
Rudyard Kipling.

   The Queen of
England lives in Buckingham Palace. It is a wonderful building with a monument
in front of it which is the Queen Victoria Memorial. It takes twenty minutes to
get from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace.