Left home at 9am and caught a bus to Westminster Bridge and ferry to Greenwich. The ferry had an amusing and very informative commentary on the past and present state of the Thames and the buildings that line it.
We got off the ferry and had a quick look at the Cutty Sark, one of the last tea Clippers. We didn’t go on-board, admiring it from the shore was enough.
We then went into Greenwich market, sampled a bit of the food from various vendors before deciding on lunch, for me, Fish and Chips, and Deb, a soft shell crab roll. We took it into Greenwich park below the observatory, found a bench and admired the very British setting. Very relaxing and very tasty.
We then made our way up the long, tree lined path to the Observatory at the top of the hill. Just before the entrance to the observatory is a wall displaying various imperial units of measurement, the British yard, two feet, one foot, six inches and three inches. There was a time where standard units of measurement were on public display to try and make sure everyone was using the same units. These days we take for granted that a meter measure is actually a meter, no one ever checks it.
We went into the Observatory and got our audio guides and started the self guided tour. I’m afraid it was too much information for Deb, on the other hand I found the history fascinating.
The basis of the idea for a Prime Meridian was navigation. In the mid 1800’s Britain controlled 1/3 of the known world and 1/3 of all trade. It was in the counties interest to make sure their ships knew exactly where they were in terms of east and west (longitude). Sailors could use the stars to accurately place themselves north and south, but east west was a real issue.
Scientists of the day divided the world into 24 time zones, representing each hour of the day, these meridians, or line of longitude, were 15 degrees apart. Sailors had long been able to work out very accurately the time of day where they were by using the sun and charts, if they could find a way to know what the time was at a set location they could work out exactly where there were in terms of east/west. To this end, the King of the day offered a prize of 250000 pound to the first person who could accurately predict the location of a ship far from England (within 30 miles). This lead to the development of accurate time pieces and eventually, the “Octant” and soon after the “Sextant”. The sextant along with annually published star charts revolutionised navigation.
The work on time measurement has never stopped, from the early sundials, then mechanical devices of all description, to the atomic clock, and now they are working on a clock using a single trapped ion in a force field probed by lasers which they hope will result in a clock so accurate it would loose only 1 second every billion years.
(Deb here, thank you that makes much more sense than the audio ?)
Anyway, enough science, we had lots of fun straddling the Prime Meridian strip in the court yard of the observatory, we sat and watched the 1 o’clock fall of the ball at the observatory. (This was used by ships captains to set the ships clock accurately before they set sail on long voyages). We admired the views back up the Thames towards London and down over the historic buildings in Greenwich village below us.
From there we walked back down the path and went to the Queen’s House. This building is full of fabulous paintings of historical maritime events and portraits of historical maritime figures. But the highlight of the entire House was the “Amarda” portrait of Queen Elizabeth I. Such a powerful piece.
We then went to the National Maritime Museum. This museum covers all aspects of Britain’s Maritime history, such a rich history. We were particularly interested in seeing the Nelson collection on the top floor of the South Wing. Our walking tour in London the other day primed our interest in Nelson, so this worked well for us. It was very interesting with displays of his actual uniforms, weapons of the day, bizarre medical equipment used in his time, models of the ships and amazing paintings of the battles and figures of the day.
On our way back to the ferry wharf, we passed by a shop proudly declaring itself to be the first shop in the world. After a little bit of research, they maybe right. The shop lies just 4/10’s of a minute west from the Prime Meridian! ?
We enjoyed the ferry ride back to Westminster and got our bus home with no problems today. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks ?
