Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tudor kings favored the palace at Greenwich. Henry VIII was born here. Later kings com-
missioned architects Inigo Jones and Christopher Wren to beautify the town and palace,
and William and Mary built a grand hospital to care for retired seamen (which later became
a college for training naval officers). Today, Greenwich is a pincushion of royal, maritime,
and scientific sights from Britain's illustrious past.
(See “Greenwich” map,
here
.)
I've linked Greenwich's major sights with handy walking directions. Each attraction is de-
scribed in full and rated; you can pick and choose which ones you enter. If you're in a rush,
make a beeline to only the sights that interest you.
• Our first stop is the
Cutty Sark
. If you're arriving by boat, it's right in front of you. If
you're coming by DLR, you'll get off at the Cutty Sark stop, exit the station to the left,
pass under the brick archway, cross the street, and continue straight ahead one block to
the monumental gateway for the Old Royal Naval College complex. The
Cutty Sark
is just
inside the gate on the left.
▲▲▲
Cutty Sark
The Scottish-built
Cutty Sark
was the last of the great China tea clippers and the queen of
the seas when first launched in 1869. She was among the fastest clippers ever built, the
culmination of centuries of ship design. With 32,000 square feet of sail—and favorable
winds—she could travel 300 miles in a day. But as a new century dawned, steamers began
to outmatch sailing ships for speed, and by the mid-1920s the
Cutty Sark
was the world's
last operating clipper ship. After a stint as a training ship, she was retired and turned into a
museum in the 1950s.
