The walls remember — the castle story

History-telling words: military, exchange, relation, respect — the past in plain English.

Read the sentences below, then practice the whole lesson with audio.

1. 1Mind the steps — this house has stood over the town for six hundred years.
2. 2It was a military house first — thick walls, small windows, one heavy door.
3. 3See the marks by the door? An attack in fourteen-twenty — they never got in.
4. 4A hundred servants worked these floors, and history doesn't know one of their names.
5. 5The poor ate here once a year — one good meal, then back into the cold.
6. 6This long blade on the wall has a name — which is more than anyone gave the servants.
7. 7The guns came later — you can see where they cut the new windows for them.
8. 8Down here is the wine room — some of these bottles are older than your country.
9. 9The silver plates came out when important people came to eat.
10. 10Punishment here was quick and public — we'll not go into the details before lunch.
11. 11Every stone was an exchange — land for peace, a daughter for an army.
12. 12The family had relations in three countries — that was power in those days.
13. 13In the library there's prose from thirteen-ninety — someone's writing, still clear.
14. 14The sons and daughters of the house had their teaching here, in this cold little room.
15. 15Respect the place as you walk it — not for the family, but for the hundred servants nobody wrote down.