On Saturday, we indulged in a tour offered by the incomparable Context Travel They cap their tours at six people, but we had the delightful Peter Currie entirely to ourselves. We cruised down the Thames with him to visit to the Greenwich Hospital and the Royal Observatory.
We skipped the Queen’s House, in the foreground, but took in some highlights of the buildings just on the other side: originally the Royal Hospital for Seamen, then the Royal Naval School.
As the Royal Hospital, the buildings housed retired naval personnel from the early 1700s to 1873. Then, until 1998, navy officers trained there.
The resident veterans were required to endure services in the chapel, facing the 24-foot high painting by American émigré Benjamin West. It shows the apostle Paul, after a shipwreck, miraculously surviving a viper’s attack. The shipwreck being appropriately naval and religious, apparently.
Above the anchor design, lower left, are the letters SPQB. Two thousand years ago, when Londinium was a remote Roman colony, one might’ve seen SPQR standing for Senatus Populusque Romanus or “the Senate and People of Rome,” a proud reference to democratic rule. Two hundred years ago, when ships and seamen set sail from the same place to colonize elsewhere, this chapel’s builders saw no irony in adapting the phrase to mean that their government followed the will of its people.
After Henry VIII forcibly converted the whole nation from Catholicism to Protestantism in the 16th century, churches commonly displayed the Royal Arms, the monarch’s personal “armorial bearings.” The design reminded everyone that the monarch was head of the church as well as the nation. Once you realize what it means, it’s jarring to an American.
Our guide, Peter Currie, with his ever-ready iPad stuffed full of useful images: maps, paintings, architectural drawings. He kept having to wipe off the sunscreen transferred from his fingers. (Have I mentioned how unbelievably sunny it’s been the whole week?!) We keep referring back to his useful explanations about economics, history, and sociology.
Detail of a ceremonial barge on display at the Maritime Museum.
This artwork, now outside the Maritime Museum, sat on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Squre for a while. It represents Lord Admiral Nelson’s flagship from the Battle of Trafalgar, but with traditional African fabric for its sails. On its removal, a fundraising campaign gathered enough money to buy it and keep it in public hands.
This artwork, now outside the Maritime Museum, sat on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Squre for a while. It represents Lord Admiral Nelson’s flagship from the Battle of Trafalgar, but with traditional African fabric for its sails. On its removal, a fundraising campaign gathered enough money to buy it and keep it in public hands.
Greenwich has to do with time in a couple ways. There’s “Greenwich Mean Time,” which we owe to railroads. When they became common transport, people got fed up with a long-endured fact: “noon” happens at a different time everywhere. Industrialized countries decided, in 1884, to recognize 24 time zones, with the count starting at Greenwich (though France, of course, didn’t agree for thirty years). Within each time zone, a train that leaves at 1:00 and travels west for twenty-seven minutes arrives at 1:27, even though strict observation of the sun’s position would put it a bit later than that.
The
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