Touring Royal Greenwich | Birthplace of Henry VIII and the Prime Meridian

foreign [Music] good afternoon everyone Sinead here with free tours by foot London I'm standing in front of the oldest scientific institution in the country ladies and gentlemen this is Greenwich Observatory the Royal Borough of Greenwich is coming your way we're going to start our tour today at the cubby Sark we're going to head to Greenwich Market the Royal Naval Hospital the painted Hall the Queen's house the national Maritime Museum and we will end up where East Meets West ladies and gentlemen at the prime meridian line here in Greenwich right you guys so this is the view I'm starting out with here at the incredible Borough of Greenwich you can hear some lovely chilled music Vibes going on here in the corner it's a beautiful day I've just taken the Thames Clipper which is pulling up here at Greenwich Pier now there's a couple of ways to get here actually you can also take the Jubilee line to North Greenwich you can take the Thames Clipper or the Uber boat you can take the overground to Greenwich and you can also take the DLR one of the most famous tea Clippers in the world the incredible cuddly Stark now permanently moored here you can visit on board it's an incredible historic Tale taking you back to when it traded with China for tea and it was a built-in Dumbarton in Scotland in 1869 and as I mentioned it was one of the last tea clippers but also one of the fastest to ever be built but an amazing attraction the minute you get off the boat it's right here of course it wasn't long afterwards the steam ships took over and the efficiency of their fuel consumption made it a lot quicker and the opening of the sewers Canal of course made the trade to China a lot easier so they became extinct but I mean they served that purpose you can visit on board here I believe it's something in the region of about 10 pounds ladies and gentlemen so it's a great thing to do with the kids and Families but let's head into the town of Greenwich itself [Music] so the market was granted a royal Charter in 1849 and I was originally constructed as part of a town Improvement scheme and that's become one of the more popular places to visit every single day but I suppose the most the busiest day of the week it's always Saturday or Sunday so you can find the wealth of amazing little goods and souvenirs here from crafts and arts and crafts and jewelry to Art to vinyl records to Brick her back if you like we tend to pipe clean our art handmade crafts couple of little just give you a little overview of what's on offer here [Music] that is Greenwich market now I expect it's much busier and packed on the weekends that'll give you an idea where it is now let's head to our next stop we are going for the architectural masterpiece that's the Christopher Wren the Royal Naval College built on the former site what was known as Greenwich Palace so the architectural Masterpiece you're looking at today was built by Christopher Ren in 1694. ladies and gentlemen this was originally built as a hospital for returning semen from the nine years war it was Queen Mary II in 1694 who ordered a new architectural gem for this landscape she was compelled to build a hospital for returning semen particularly for those returning from the Battle of La Hogue in 1692. one of Mary's demands was that the hospital should be split in two so as not to obscure the view from Queen's house of the River Thames which is directly behind me but prior to that on this site was an incredible Palace known as Greenwich Palace favored by the Tudor monarchs the former Greenwich Palace which stood on this side afforded beautiful views of the river of course so here we have a plaque to commemorate and on this plaque it reads on the sites to the Tudor Palace of Greenwich built by King Henry VII birthplace of King Henry VII in 1491 Queen Mary the first in 1516 and Queen Elizabeth the first in 1533. now although Christopher Wren laid out the plans and began building the old Royal Naval College along with his assistant Nicholas hawksmore it was an architect named vanbura who completed the building to the original plans after Ren died now what I find quite fascinating is that the construction of the hospital was mostly financed by fines paid by Merchants who were convicted of smuggling totaling 19 500 pounds in fact a large amount of the funding came from the liquidated assets of Captain William Kitt which totaled 6472 pounds and of course we spoke about Captain Kidd in our tour of whopping an execution dock today parts of the buildings here are owned by the University of Greenwich and The Trinity College of Music and inside these incredible buildings you have a number of amazing chapels like the Saint Peter and Paul chapel and also the beautiful painted Hall which I'm so excited to show you so this Chapel was built in 1742 and was part of the original design by Ren decorated in an elaborate Rococo style scenes from Four Weddings and a funeral and The Madness of King George were both filmed inside here so you may recognize it so this is the very impressive entrance to the Chapel of Saint Peter and Paul where the wedding of Lydia and Bernard takes place in the film I just mentioned there is some construction taking place inside so we can only take a quick look let's head in [Music] stunning Altarpiece painting is called preservation of Saint Paul after shipwreck at Malta and was done by an artist named Benjamin West often said to be the Raphael of America next up folks we're heading into the stunning painted Hall which took 19 years to complete this is widely regarded as the Sistine Chapel of Great Britain a I can't wait to show you this stunning gem inside this building here this is the stunning entrance to the painted Hall folks and it was James Thornhill won a commission to paint a tribute here to the British Monarchy and this is the result highly regarded to be the Sistine Chapel of Great Britain 40 000 feet square feet of the Masterpiece the mural depicts the divisions between Providence and protestantism and Catholicism in this country I mean it's absolutely breathtaking and I'm going to take you up the steps and sorry about the slight unsteadiness of the camera they insist that there is no gimbal or a cloud in here take you for a closer look we're taking that is [Music] thank you foreign so the idea behind this piece is the Protestant King William III and Queen Mary II are defeating the Catholic Louis XVI as you can see he's dropped his crown basically implying that protestantism is Victorious over Catholicism a mural to depict and glorify the monarchy a stunning work by James Thornhill that took him 19 years [Music] foreign [Music] right at the back is the national Maritime Museum which holds a collection of over 2 million objects it was formally opened on the 27th of April in 1937 by King George VI who was accompanied by his daughter the young princess Elizabeth the museum holds the most important artifacts in the world that relate to Britain at Sea and there is one particular exhibit I'd like to show you inside plenty to see and do here but I'm going to take you up very briefly to Nelson Navy and Nation exhibit uh incredible to think they actually have the bullet ridden Jersey of Admiral Lord Horacio Nelson this is the coach of Nelson the actual coach he was wearing when he was fatally sharp in the shoulder you can just make out the hole on top folks after death he was eventually returned to Greenwich and so his corpse would make the journey they pickled his body in a vat of Brandy they do say however that the sailors aboard the ship had drunk the Brandy during the voyage and this is said to be the origin of the term tapping the Admiral next up ladies and gents right beside the national Maritime Museum is the stunning Masterpiece of Inigo Jones the Queen's house a former Royal residence built between 1616 and 1635. it was built by Inigo Jones who was widely regarded to be the first architect of London the Queen's house is credited as being the first classical building to have been constructed in the country it was built for Anne of Denmark the queen of James the first [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] stairs and it was the first century unsupported helical Stairs constructed in England and the Tulip stairs as a comment this is where we have the actual achievements this would have been an absolute Marvel to anyone visiting this incredible house attained Century I'm standing ladies and gentlemen right in the center of one of the oldest Royal parks in London and one of these most popular with locals in the area but a 200 acre vast estate that was laid out first by Humphrey Duke of Gloucester in 1462. this was the playground also of Henry the eighth ladies and gents as she grew up in the area but this and his other life is where he came to show off his manly scales of sword fighting and hunting and jousting let's take note in the background of this big red time ball ladies and gents is on top of flansteed house and I'm going to be heading up there very shortly is one of the world's worlds earliest public time signals Distributing time to ships on the Thames and many londoners the time ball was first used in 1833 and still operates today now it's just 12 55 each day that time ball raises halfway up its mast and at 12 58 it's going to raise all the way to the top and at 1 pm exactly this ball will fall only the richest people at the time could afford watches folks and to buy clocks and watches of their own so most people relied on public sundials to tell the time but confusion arose um when different local times were being recorded in both the East and the West some of them have a 30 minute time difference this led to the creation of Standard Time braced on the prime meridian line at Greenwich and you'll see the board heading up right now on exactly one o'clock we'll see the ball fall [Music] I'm waiting for the ball to drop still there you go exactly 1pm first [Music] and this folks is the incredible Royal Observatory and it's the dividing point of the world where East Meets West the foundation stones of the Royal Observatory were laid at 3 14 pm on the 10th of August 1675. and it marked the beginning of the universal standard of the measurement of time now we're going to have a quick look inside as you first enter your face with William harshall's telescope folks as the remaining section of a 40-foot reflecting telescope which was built for the astronomer William harshell became famous for his discovery of the planet Uranus in 1781 he actually lived as well in bath for a period of time folks where you can visit the famous Herschel Museum we're heading here to get your tickets because we're here for the prime meridian line so your first stop on the tour is flamensteed house folks and fransteed was the first astronomer Royal he was the one who approached Ren Sir Christopher Wren to build Royal Observatory and he built it for less than 500 pounds France did most of his work 43 years of watching stars in a shed at the bottom of his garden as the roof could retract lying on a mattress with the instruments he bought himself good an idea where he did most of his incredible research [Music] thank you [Music] foreign what's it all about what does it mean it was created by Charles the second possibly the greatest contribution by the crown for science in this country folks the primary purpose of the foundation of the Royal Observatory at Greenwich was for navigation as Britain was becoming a major Maritime power they needed to know more and more and in particular they needed to find longitude for navigation purposes until the 18th century each country tended to use its own Capital as the zero point from which to measure longitude however in 1767 the British nautical Almanac was first published and became the handbook for all Navigators at the International Conference held in Washington in 1884 it was agreed that this prime meridian life passing through the Royal Observatory here at Greenwich should be the prime meridian from which meridians from east and west up to 180 degrees were to be measured major attraction here at Gretna I must admit it is slightly chaotic in there but as you exit ladies and gentlemen this is the icing on the cake look at where we are now the reviews in London then the reviews [Music] on top of Greenwich Parks folks we can see where we've been the Queen's house and the old Royal Naval Hospital there's the O2 as well which you can see in the video where I take the cable cars all right ladies and gents I hope you've enjoyed our little jaunt around Greenwich don't forget to like And subscribe and share with your friends the public tour schedule is available and if you'd like to book a private tour with me you'll see the links under all the videos until the next time this is Sinead with free tours by foot London at the stunning Greenwich Park thanks for watching as always see you soon

Channel: Free Tours by Foot - London

Views: 36,011

Keywords: London, tour, walking tour, virtualtour, greenwich, royalgreenwich, maritimegreenwich, royalnavalhospital, palaces, museums, royal observatory, primemeridian, royalparks, greenwich park, henryviii, britishnavy, royalnavalmuseum, royal naval museum, Cutty sark, cuttysark, river thames

Id: H0zyzSJcz_U

Length: 21min 31sec (1291 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 31 2023