Friday 2nd May 2014 - My visit to The Royal Observatory and Prime Meridian at Greenwich
Friday, May 2, 2014 at 4:20PM
If you are ever in London you must visit the Royal Observatory at Greenwich and the Prime Meridian of the world - although I discovered on my visit on 7th February 2013 that there are in fact three Prime Meridia at Greenwich (I think that is probably the plural) as I will explain later. Armed with my trusty Sony Alpha 350 camera I travelled from Euston Mainline Station on the Northern Line (City Branch) to Bank underground station and there transferred to the Docklands Light Railway (overground) via Canary Wharf to Cutty Sark Station. I could see Cutty Sark from the station so a slight diversion was in order.
I must admit that I was not too keen with the fact that Cutty Sark looked as though it had crash landed on top of a greenhouse and squashed it but what do I know about art and architecture?
There were clear signposts to show the way to the Royal Observatory so I followed them past the National Maritime Museum.
The National Maritime Museum
I turned right and into Greenwich Park to get my first view of the Observatory.
The Royal Greenwich Observatory from Greenwich Park
Flamsteed House through the trees - still a way to climb!
Flamsteed House and the Time Ball
The observatory to the left contains the 28" refractor installed in 1893 in the "Onion Dome" which was originally built of iron struts covered with papier mache. In October 1940 a German air raid damaged the dome and in July 1944 a V1 flying bomb removed the papier mache covering. It was restored to the original design in 1971 - with fibreglass this time!
The above section of telescope was the first thing that I saw on entering the Greenwich Observatory. The photograph (below) of the accompanying plaque reveals all.
Details of my visit to Herschel's house in Bath are here.
To be continued...............................................................