1982 Greenwich (7/10/1982)

Saturday, July10, 1982

Sue checked us in for one more night while I ran to the post office to try to mail a package, but it was closed.

Youth Hostel receipt

Returned to have breakfast and it was so crowded we had to sit on the stage to eat. At 8:30 we left to catch the tube from South Kensington to Victoria Station. Went to the nearby post office to find it closed. A sign indicated the Trafalgar Square post office would be open until 20:00. Walked over to the Wilton Road Coach Station to wait for the 10:00 departure of our London Transport Tour to Greenwich.

London Transport Coach Tour ticket

We boarded the ventilator air-cooled bus and it was very comfortable. We had 17 people on the tour with our driver, Bill, and guide, Lian. Passed Victoria Station and Westminster Abbey that the guide said was built by Edward the Confessor; oh, so he was a king before he became sainted! Sir Walter Raleigh was buried in St Margaret’s (1486-1523) next door. Across the street there is a statue of Abraham Lincoln (1920 by Augustus Saint-Gaudens) in Parliament Square, facing Parliament so he can learn how to govern properly, ha, ha! No mention of Big Ben. We followed the Thames River and had landmarks pointed out, like the National Theatre (1976-77 designed by architects Sir Denys Lasdun and Peter Softley). We passed Cleopatra’s Needle (15C BCE, erected here in 1878) and the Waterloo Bridge, and circled around the Tower of London to cross the Tower Bridge. Went past wharves, through suburbs and by the Blackheath, which legend has as the last stop for the Black Death and 1665 Plague, as victims were buried here. Also at Blackheath is where King Henry VIII officially met his fourth wife, Anne of Cleves, and decided he didn’t like her.

Bill dropped us off at one side of Greenwich Park and we strolled through formal gardens with golf course grass, circular beds of carnations, snapdragons, and geraniums, and artistic evergreens.

Greenwich Park

View towards London

People lounged in canvas chairs (a man goes around to collect a fee). Nearby was a deer enclosure, and grounds designated for kids to play football (i.e., soccer) and dogs to poop. We were given a 15-minute break at a snack-bar and Frank, the Texan businessman on his day off, came to talk to us about cameras. At 11:00 we met to go to the observatory, first looking down on the Queen’s House (1616-19 designed by Inigo Jones). How many houses does the Queen have?

Queen's House and Royal Naval College

The Royal Naval College (1696-1712 designed by Sir Christopher Wren for a hospital and thus has two mini St Paul’s domes) sits between the Queen’s House and the Thames, but leaves a sight line for the Queen to see the river.

Across the river was the Isle of Dogs, originally Isle of Dycks because it was reclaimed land, perhaps the Isle of Ducks because of wild water fowl, and later it was where King Henry VIII kept his dogs. It’s bad enough that the English mangle foreign names, but no wonder if they can’t keep their own names straight!

General James Wolfe statue at the Royal Observatory

We had to check our bags and then go stand by the modern Prime Meridian, established by Sir George Airy in 1851, marking 0^o 00‘ 00” longitude. This is the third such line, an improvement over the James Bradley line, which improved upon John Flamsteed’s line. Straddling the line, we had one foot in the Western and one in the Eastern Hemispheres.

Sue with her feet in two hemispheres

Went to the original observatory (1675–76 designed by Sir Christopher Wren) with the big red ball on top, which, when the electricity works, is raised before 13:00. then dropped at exactly 13:00. Here is where the first Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed lived and worked. The observatory room held ancient instruments and telescopes. Downstairs were the astrolabes, “models” of the universe, and devices for measuring time such as astronomical clocks and zodiac calendars. In Flamsteed’s living quarters we were given the background of the phrase “chairman-” (Daddy had the chair and everyone else had a stool, ha, ha!) “-of the board” (dinner table). Also for “turning the tables” (polished side for show and rough side for every day use). We moved on to Bradley’s and Airy’s observatory to see their instruments and their lines of transit across the ceiling, which opened up. Bradley used to lie down on the floor with his telescope.

We walked down the hill across Greenwich Park and outside the gates stopped to have lunch at the Gloucester Pub. Sue and I were seated with an old English lady and her American great-niece from Bethesda, MD! We had Cornish pasties (minced meat and potatoes in a folded-over pie crust) with chips and peas. I gave half my chips to Angela from Bethesda.

We met the group at 13:00 to walk over to the colonnade of the Queen’s House. We were told the architect had a drunk godfather who dropped him in the baptismal font exclaiming “In ‘e go!” ha, ha. We went in the Maritime Museum where our guide took us to see the reconstruction of the Sutton Hoo burial ship (whose treasures we had seen in the British Museum), and other wooden barges held together with rope. Also saw John Harrison’s series of marine chronographs he developed for use on board ships. His very first chronograph was about 2 feet square and the final winner of a Royal Navy Prize was 5 inches in diameter, looking like a large pocket watch.

We were allowed to wander on our own for an hour, to see exhibits of naval accomplishments in colonization. In the late 1700s England was fighting the Americans and the French, Captain James Cook was exploring the South Pacific, Antarctica was being explored, etc. Saw exhibits on famous naval personnel, most notably Horatio Nelson. We were to look at a painting of Napoleon and compare it to Marlon Brando. There were model ships and Nelson’s stockings, commemorative and honorary coins, seals, medals, and films explaining the running of sailing ships.

We walked over to the Royal Naval College which was originally the naval hospital, where they got their first instructors, ha, ha? The Painted Hall was the mess hall with classically painted ceilings, painted columns,and curlicues on the walls. The artist, James Thornhill, painted himself in one picture and added a ghostly hand of a body snatcher reaching for Horatio as he lay in state. There were long oak tables with leather chairs and silver candelabra lamps plugged into outlets built into the tables.

The Naval Chapel was done in white on blue and pink gingerbread architectural details, with lamps hidden in the window ledges. The pulpit had Coade stone/artificial stone medallions whose recipe is reported to have been lost and they can’t recreate it. (NB. There is a recipe and it can be produced although it requires great skill to fire properly in kilns.) We went outside in time to see a tug pulling a freighter backwards up the Thames, passing at the point where naval vessels must salute the Queen/flag at the Queen’s House.

Walked down to the Cutty Sark, the last of the tea clipper ships. We heard the story of Tam O’Shanter who got drunk and while riding his horse he happens upon some witches dancing. He shouts out something about a short skirt/cutty sark and is chased by the witches. He spurs his horse to cross the river as witches cannot cross running water, and he just makes it as a witch lunges to grab the horse’s tail. The figurehead of the Cutty Sark is stretching out her hand to hold a mop, no, it’s a horse’s tail.

Figurehead of the Cutty Sark

We boarded the ship for more nautical exhibits, including a few ship models inside glass bottles. Saw the captain’s cabin, the crew’s quarters, the galley, and the color-coded ropes. Down below were figureheads and an explanation of the building of the Gipsy Moth IV. Outside we could see the Gipsy Moth IV, a ketch/2-masted sailing craft, used by Sir Francis Chichester to sail solo around the world in 1966-67.

We heard the firemen’s band play and saw the large round elevator with stairs curving around the outside with which you reach the Greenwich foot tunnel that crosses under the Thames. We went to meet the rest of our group to catch a boat at 17:00 to Westminster Pier. We sat low, with our windows just above water level in a cabin with red lampshades and gold painted decorations on the walls. The guide pointed out things along the way: where a ship was launched sideways because of its length, where the Hanging Judge (George Jeffries) was captured (a noose hangs there today), Traitors Gate at the Tower of London, the HMS Belfast, the Tower Bridge, the new London Bridge, and Cleopatra’s Needle.

Tower of London and Traitors Gate

Cleopatra's Needle

We arrived at Westminster about 17:45 and Sue and I walked up to Trafalgar Square where I mailed my package for 5.30 GBP/$9.25. I had to fill out a customs form with pants, tops, buttons, book, printed matter, and cable release! Forgot to list the money. We went to St James Park to sit on the grass and eat dinner, listening to the Blues and Royals Band playing lively tunes. We made sandwiches with ham and leftover cheese. We stayed after the concert ended as it cooled off. At Charing Cross we took the Northern Line to Leicester Square, changed to the Piccadilly Line to South Kensington. Back at the hostel, our two German girls were upset as they had a couple guys ask them to exchange money, yet the guys had no money. They felt young and vulnerable, so we recommended they stay at the YWCA. I went to take a shower in one of two stalls, and someone came to use the other stall. When I was done I reached out for my towel and stayed in the stall to dry off. The other shower stopped and a guy stepped out to get his towel. He saw me admiring him and jumped back in his stall. I hurriedly dressed and left to give him privacy!