Royal Greenwich

What’s there ?

The National Maritime Museum !

And . . .

The Royal Observatory Greenwich !

And . . .

The Queen’s House

(hmmm – which queen?)

And . . .

The Cutty Sark !

Cutty Sark is the last surviving tea clipper and the fastest and greatest of her time, newly re-opened in all her glory. Venture aboard and beneath one of the world’s most famous ships, and marvel as you

balance a 963-tonne national treasure on just one hand.

Greenwich became a Royal Borough on 3 February 2012, the year Queen Elizabeth II

celebrated her Diamond Jubilee.

The award recognised the historically close links forged between Greenwich and the royal family

from the Middle Ages to the present day. It also recognised Greenwich's global significance as

the home of the Prime Meridian, Greenwich Mean Time and its status as a World Heritage Site.

Greenwich joined the three existing Royal Boroughs - Kensington & Chelsea, Windsor & Maidenhead

and Kingston.

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous ?

• Royal Manor Henry V created the Greenwich royal manor in the 15th century, which was later granted to his half-brother Duke Humphrey of Gloucester. In around 1433 Humphrey enclosed what is now Greenwich Park, the oldest of all the Royal Parks, and built a new riverside house. This was developed by his successors, Henry VI and Henry VII, and renamed the Palace of Placentia or 'pleasant place'.

Henry VIII was born at Placentia in 1491. A compulsive builder and keen horseman, he made further alterations to the site including a new chapel, stables and a tiltyard with towers and a viewing gallery. He also stocked Greenwich Park with deer in 1515 and their descendants are still there.

Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves at Greenwich Palace and his daughters, Elizabeth and Mary, were born there. Each went on to rule England as Mary I and Elizabeth I.

Sadly, the Palcentia palace was torn down in the late 17th century. ( The Old Royal Navy College now stands on the site. ) Henry VIII’s son Edward VI died at a young age at Greenwich.

Greenwich was ALSO important to the STUARTS after the Tudor dynasty was gone . . .

BORN: 16 JUNE 1566PROCLAIMED KING OF SCOTLAND: 29 JULY 1567KING OF ENGLAND: 24 MARCH 1603DIED: 27 MARCH 1625

Son of Mary Queen of Scots and Henry Stewart. Became James VI of Scotland upon his mother's abdication and flight to England. Became James I, King of England on Elizabeth's death. Married to Anne of Denmark.

Queen Anne’s HouseIn 1616 Anne commissioned Inigo Jones (1573–1652), who

had risen to fame as a designer of court entertainments and was appointed Surveyor of the King's Works the following year, to design a new pavilion for her at Greenwich. It was apparently a place of private retreat and hospitality and was also designed as a bridge over the Greenwich to Woolwich Road, between the palace gardens and the Royal Park.

Jones had recently spent three years in Italy studying Roman and Renaissance architecture. It was his first important commission and the first fully Classical building seen in England. Though generally called Palladian in style, its prime model was the Medici villa at Poggio a Caiano, by Giuliano de Sangallo.

Construction stopped on the House in April 1618 when Anne became ill: she died the following year.

It was thatched over at first floor level and building only restarted when James's son Charles I gave Greenwich to his queen, Henrietta Maria (daughter of Henri IV of France), in

1629.

It was structurally completed in 1635. Reflecting Renaissance ideas of mathematical, Classical proportion and harmony,

the House's design was revolutionary in Britain at a time

when even the best native building was still in red-brick,

Tudor-derived style.

Royal Observatory

Flamsteed House and the Meridian Courtyard

You can stand astride two hemispheres !

Flamsteed House is the original Observatory building at Greenwich, designed by Sir Christopher Wren

in 1675 on the instructions of King Charles II. The historic site also includes the Prime Meridian of the

World, the Harrison timekeepers and the UK's largest refracting telescope

• The bright red Time Ball on top of Flamsteed House is one of the world's earliest public time signals, distributing time to ships on the Thames and many Londoners. It was first used in 1833 and still operates today.

• What does the Time Ball do?• Each day, at 12.55, the time ball rises half way up its mast. At 12.58 it

rises all the way to the top. At 13.00 exactly, the ball falls, and so provides a signal to anyone who happens to be looking. Of course, if you were looking the wrong way, you had to wait until the next day before it happened again.

• The Time Ball drops at 13.00 GMT during the winter months and 13.00 BST during the summer. Please note: the time ball will not be run if the weather is too windy.

• What did people do before there was a time ball?• Only the richest people could afford to buy clocks and watches of their

own. Most people relied on public sundials to tell the time. This led to different local times across the country, with clocks on the eastern side of the country about 30 minutes ahead of those in the west.

• The difficulties created by everyone using their own local time eventually led to the creation of Standard Time based on the Prime Meridian at Greenwich.

National Maritime Museum !

Since earliest times Greenwich has had associations with the sea and navigation.

It was a landing place for the Romans; Henry VIII lived here; the navy has roots on the

waterfront; and Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in 1675 for "finding the longitude of places". The home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian since 1884, Greenwich has

long been a centre for astronomical study, while navigators across the world have set their clocks

according to its time of day. A painting of the Great Comet of 1843 that was created by

astronomer Charles Piazzi Smyth.

The Museum has the most important holdings in the world on the history of Britain at sea comprising more than two million items, including maritime art (both

British and 17th-century Dutch), cartography, manuscripts including official public records,

ship models and plans, scientific and navigational instruments, instruments for time-keeping and

astronomy (based at the Observatory). Its British portraits collection is exceeded in size only by that of

the National Portrait Gallery and its holdings relating to Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson and Captain James Cook,

among many other individuals, are unrivalled.

Well – that is SOME of what’s there …

Who knows how much we can see !