Maritime Greenwich

Last week I went to Maritime Greenwich, which is actually pretty cool. The museums there are quite interesting (and more importantly, free!), there's a huge beautiful park (see photos below) and a pretty good market. Quite frankly, the market's got really great food, so if you're going there, it's really a good place to stop for lunch.

This one's from the naval/astronomy museum. It where they keep the coat that Nelson was shot in (you can see the bullet hole) and for some reason they also got a chunk of his hair. Ah, well, anything in the name of history, I suppose. There are also many historical artifacts from England's illustrious naval history, and some interactive stuff for the kids. Dmitry, when you get here, we are so going here. I spent the entire time thinking of you.


This one is from the astronomy museum, which is primarily a museum dedicated to John Flamsteed, who is also the subject of this lovely and enthusiastic lady's speech. Flamsteed was the very first astronomer royal, in the late 1600's. Apparently, the position was not as glamourous as it sounds. Flamsteed only got paid 100 pounds a year and he had to pay for his own telescope. Flamsteed, who was never a particularly healthy guy (I think it was gout, but don't quote me), had to suffer for his work.

You see, Christopher Wren, the famous architect, built the observatory in the astronomer's home. Wren, while a fabulous architect (the room is quite lovely, actually), wasn't so smart when it came to astronomy. The room was surrounded by windows, which faced every concievable direction .... except for directly North and South. As a result, the frequently-ill Flamsteed was forced to take his telescope up to the roof to make his observations properly. He also made some of his observations from his vegetable garden. And you thought your job sucked.

Anyway, Flamsteed's home is now a museum, and right next to it is one that shows the development of time-keeping, particularly in relation to naval history. Imaginably, once you're out of sight of land, it's difficult to know what time it is. The museum chronicles the development of a reliable (and portable) clock, which is actually pretty interesting. It also tells you some of the more .... eccentric ideas they had for letting sailors know what time it was. For example, someone had the brilliant idea of having the guys at various ports-of-call fire off a rocket every day at exactly noon, so that the ships out at see would see it and know that it was noon. This didn't work, because, well, if you were out at sea, you probably wouldn't see the damn rocket, and also because the rockets of the time were unreliable and wouldn't fly very high.

These museums are definitely worth seeing, but it is rather difficult to drag your butt up there to see them (they're both at the top of a very large hill, which actually makes for pretty views).

Like I said, pretty views.


The millenium clock was set off at (duh!) the millenium, and keeps obscenely accurate time, telling you just how long it's been since midnight on the year 2000. Why you'd want to know, I'm not sure, but it'll tell you.

Flamsteed's house was built in this particular location because it stands on (or if you believe the sign, really, really next to) the prime meridian, which the zero point of longitude. For those of you who confuse longitude and latitude like I do, longitude is the one that measures east to west. Also, that is the millienium clock ticking away directly beneath the prime meridian display.