Summary
The monument comprises the historic standing buildings and structures of the Royal Observatory Greenwich and the below ground remains associated with the observatory and former occupation.
Reasons for Designation
The Royal Observatory Greenwich is scheduled for the following principal reasons:
* Survival: the listed Observatory buildings survive well demonstrating the evolution of the academic study of astronomy and its contribution to British scientific and martime history in addition to international cartography and timekeeping;
* Potential: the structures and below ground remains of the monument have the potential to provide further information on the development of the Royal Observatory and its associated structures and previous buildings on the site;
* Documentation: the history and archaeology of the monument is evidenced through written documentation, scientific publications, artworks, photographs and other archive sources. The archaeological potential is documented by archaeological investigation reports;
* Rarity: this is an exceptionally rare monument wherein the Prime Meridian is laid out as a demarcated line in the northern (Meridian) courtyard. It is an early example of a state-funded scientific establishment, founded in 1675 by King Charles II to promote scientific endeavour and improve maritime navigation, with buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren and others. The monument is associated with nationally important scientists of the C17 through to the C21.
History
Please note that this history is a summary and not intended to be exhaustive. Please see Sources for more information and the National Heritage List for England for details on the designated assets.
Following the report of a Royal Commission established by King Charles II, the Greenwich Observatory was founded in 1675 to provide accurate astronomical observation to improve navigation at sea and ensure the Royal Navy’s success. The King appointed John Flamsteed that year to undertake the necessary observations as ‘astronomical observator’, granting a stipend of £100 a year and a further £500 to build an Observatory, an early example of a state-funded scientific establishment.
Sir Christopher Wren was appointed, and along with Robert Hooke, designed and built the first Observatory building. Wren selected the site of Duke Humphrey’s Castle (also referred to as Greenwich Castle) on Greenwich Hill, a building of medieval origins set within a Royal Park and wider Royal landscape. The castle, with various courts and gardens, was built by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester probably in about 1433. In 1437 he was granted a licence to ‘embattle and build with stone’ and enclose and make a tower and ditch within the same and a certain tower within the park to build and edify’. The tower was repaired by Henry VIII and enlarged by the Earl of Northampton in the early C17. The building is shown in a version of Hollar’s long view published in 1644 which suggests that a number of ancillary structures were associated with the castle. Wren ordered the castle to be demolished and the first observatory building, known as Flamsteed House, was built on its foundations. It was completed in 1676 and fitted with accurate pendulum clocks by Thomas Tompion and other equipment purchased by Sir Jonas Moore. Wren overran the budget by only £20 and had kept costs down by reusing materials from the castle with some spare bricks, timber and iron from Board of Ordnance sites of Tilbury Fort and the Tower of London, and by selling spoilt gunpowder.
Within Flamsteed House were residential apartments for the Astronomer Royal and the Octagon Room, wherein observations were intended to take place, but as Flamsteed began his work, he discovered that the building did not meet the necessary requirements for observation. Owing to the use of the earlier castle for foundations, the building was not precisely orientated north-south and lacked the fixed and stable ground to enable accurate calculations to be made. So Flamsteed took his work to a new building, the Quadrant House and conjoined Sextant House, where he observed and measured the stars as they crossed the meridian plane as defined by a succession of angle-measuring instruments. He is also believed to have sunk a well (or utilised a pre-existing well or dene hole) in the garden from which to conduct his observations. Some of this data was later used by Sir Isaac Newton for the second edition of his groundbreaking volume, Principia. Flamsteed continued his observations until his death in 1719, notable achievements being the creation of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and proving that the Earth's rotation is constant. His star catalogue Historia Coelestis Britannica, published after his death by his widow Margaret, underscored the importance of his work and the Greenwich Observatory.
Edmond Halley succeeded Flamsteed as Astronomer Royal in 1720. He refitted the Observatory, and rebuilt the Quadrant House slightly to the north, the stone pier of which was almost exactly on the same meridian as Flamsteed’s and remains within the current Meridian Building (which incorporates elements of Flamsteed's Observatory of 1675, Halley's Quadrant Room of 1725, Bradley's New Observatory and later extensions in the C19).
Halley died in 1742, renowned through identification of the comet which took his name. He was replaced by James Bradley who had the New Observatory built by the Board of Ordnance, aligned on the meridian and retaining Halley’s stone pier. The New Observatory strayed outside the initial Observatory enclosure and now forms part of the western element of the Meridian Building. In the late-C18, the boundary wall to the east and north was constructed. Subsequent Astronomers Royal remodelled and expanded the buildings on site.
During this time, instruments and their efficiency were developing rapidly, allowing the astronomers to make far greater and more complex experiments and observation. Concurrently the race to accurately design equipment to calculate longitude was proceeding rapidly and was broadly resolved by the 1760s. While the Observatory focussed on astronomical techniques, others elsewhere worked on horological techniques, most famously John Harrison whose marine timekeepers continue to be exhibited at the Royal Observatory.
Given the importance of the Observatory and its wealth of buildings and equipment it was still retained for observation and experimentation even though it had been solely commissioned to address longitude. More buildings were erected, adapted and demolished as the need occurred. The Meridian Courtyard was created in 1791 by enclosing the land to the east of Flamsteed House and north of the Meridian Building.
When George Airy became Astronomer Royal in 1835, he led an expansion to meet the needs of the increased workload and community. Many of the existing buildings were adapted, including an extension to Bradley's New Observatory from 1809, doubling its size, and now part of the extant Meridian Building. Airy took in the southern end of the site, creating a Magnetic Observatory in 1838, built in timber, and no longer surviving but in the approximate location of the Harrison Planetarium (2007). In 1844, Airey constructed a new tower for an altazimuth telescope on the Advanced building, which had been constructed to the south of the former Sextant/Quadrant building in 1779.
Additionally, in 1857 Airy had the Great Equatorial Building erected, a vast octagonal building, initially topped with a drum-shaped dome. It was east of the New Observatory and tucked into the edge of the northern complex. He replaced and added apparatus including the Airy Transit Circle telescope which defined the Prime Meridian and provided observational data for the determination of Greenwich Mean Time. By this time the Admiralty rather than the Board of Ordnance held responsibility for the site.
Airy was succeeded by William Christie in 1881 who continued the expansion at the southern end of the site and raised funds for the New Physical Observatory (now the South Building), a large cruciform building, housing various offices, dark rooms and workshops for the staff, a library and and two main telescopes within a rooftop dome. He installed the Great Equatorial Telescope in 1893 and replaced the drum-shaped dome with an onion-shaped dome similar to that seen currently. He also built the small Altazimuth Pavilion in 1899, in the same highly decorative terracotta, rather a step change from the far more functional buildings that proceeded them.
In 1884 the Greenwich Meridian as defined by the Airy Transit Circle was brought into use as Prime Meridian of the World, zero degrees longitude, forming the basis for international cartography and timekeeping, in addition to establishing the east and west hemispheres, underscoring the site’s international significance.
Observation continued into the C20, but the expansion of London and pollution of the atmosphere made the site less useful for observation. Magnetic observations were moved to Surrey in the 1920’s but during the Second World War the Royal Observatory was damaged and its observational work was limited.
The scientific work moved to Herstmonceux Castle after the war and observation at Greenwich ceased in 1954. The site had been given to the nearby Maritime Museum from 1951, with many buildings demolished at the time and others remodelled. The estate was re-landscaped, refurbished and fitted out with galleries and it became a popular visitor attraction. Its focus was on the story of space and time, highlighting the Prime Meridian, now laid out as a demarcated line in the northern (Meridian) courtyard. In the C21 the South Building was refurbished, and the Harrison Planetarium (2007) was built on the site of the Magnetic Observatory. The Planetarium is a semi-subterranean modern building under a paved area extending southwards from the Altazimuth Pavilion.
As with the buildings, the open spaces and gardens between the buildings have been reconfigured since the C17, with elements of the park being brought in to the complex and some of the former observatory gardens incorporated into the park. Of particular importance are the following spaces:
- The courtyard to the east of Flamsteed House (Meridian Courtyard) was enclosed in 1791, the railings and retaining wall facing the river are probably original, although the main entrance wall was demolished and rebuilt in the 1960s. Temporary pavilions were built in the courtyard in the C19. The surfaces comprise flagstones and brick herringbone to the north of the building.
- The Meridian Garden (to the south of the Meridian Building, also formerly known as the Middle Garden) was the position of a flower garden in the C17 and was enclosed by a retaining wall to the south and stables to the west in the late-C18; the stables are accessed by steps with railings. The position of Flamsteed's well telescope is found here. The garden was resurfaced in 2009 during a hard landscaping project, but some flagstones and granite sett surfaces remain near to the stables and plant room.
- The Astronomer's Garden to the south of Flamsteed House and west of the Meridian Building is the oldest of the gardens at the Observatory having been enclosed in the 1670s. In Flamsteed's time it was twice the size, mostly laid to lawn but with an equipment store in the south-east corner, two toilets in the south-west corner, a garden room and sundial. Extensions to the Meridian building reduced the size of the garden by 1835, when it was laid to lawn with some fruit trees. It was hard-landscaped in 2009 when a modern sundial was installed, serving a dual purpose as a piece of art. There are retaining walls to the south, west and north, and passages providing access to other gardens and buildings on the site. During the hard landscaping of 2009, the buried remains of cisterns were found. An external lift to Flamsteed House is at the north-west extent of the garden.
- The Planetarium area spaces were reconfigured at the time of its construction in 2007, including levelling of the south building courtyard to create the Planetarium's entrance and the installation of access stairs between the entrance and top of the dome. The surface around the South Building was covered with asphalt. The paving surrounding the dome is modern.
Our understanding of the development of the Royal Observatory Greenwich is augmented by numerous etchings, plans, photographs, documents and inventories held in the National Archive and other repositories. Historic mapping from the C17 onwards attests to the remodelling of buildings and the construction and demolition of a number of different structures including those directly associated with observation.
Details
PRINCIPAL ELEMENTS
The monument comprises the historic standing buildings and structures of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and the below ground remains associated with the former occupation of the site including Duke Humphrey’s Castle, on which Flamsteed House was constructed, and other structures associated with the development of the Royal Observatory from the C17 onwards.
DESCRIPTION
The Royal Observatory is located near to the centre of Greenwich Park (Grade-I registered Park and Garden, List entry 1000174), a complex multi-period designed landscape with origins in the C15 and strong Royal connections. The site is on a raised spur of gravel beds with clay, silt and sand, and chalk bedrock. Landscaping within the monument has altered the natural profile; there is an escarpment on the west side with a retaining wall to the north and terraced landscaping. There has been reprofiling at the south end to accommodate the raised terrace over the Harrison Planetarium of 2007 and its entrance adjacent to the South Building.
There are six listed buildings included in the monument: the Royal Observatory Flamsteed House (Grade I, List entry 1358976), the original observatory, built in 1675-1676 for John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, and designed by Sir Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke. South of this is the Meridian Building, comprising the late-C17 and C18 Transit House and later structures (listed Grade I, List entry 1220877, the Prime Meridian (Longitude 0º) runs through the eastern part). To the south-east is the separately listed former Great Equatorial Building (listed Grade I, List entry 1078998) built in 1857 to house the Observatory's first large telescope. The Royal Observatory South Building (listed Grade II, List entry 1244325) was added in 1892-1899, and the smaller Altazimuth Pavilion (listed Grade II, List entry 1031860) in 1898. The Royal Observatory wall and clock to the right of the entrance gates is listed at Grade I (List entry 1220888).
Between the buildings are open spaces including the Meridian Courtyard; Astronomers’ Garden; Meridian Garden and Planetarium Area and paved areas that connect the buildings and spaces across the site. Below ground remains have been observed during groundworks in some of these spaces and beneath buildings. These include the discovery of an arched structure under the Sextant House floor (Meridian Building) which may relate to Duke Humphrey’s Castle and supports for Airy’s Altazimuth. In the 1960s, the well used by Flamsteed for his Well Telescope of 1676 (as illustrated in the etching Prospectus Versus Londinium by Francis Place after Robert Thacker of about 1676) was rediscovered during preparatory work in the Meridian Garden.
In 1999, an archaeological evaluation beneath the Meridian Courtyard revealed made ground of the late-C17 probably laid down when the Observatory was first built. Evidence of C18 building alteration was revealed in the form of disposed unwanted bricks. A Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey by Wessex Archaeology in 2021 here identified anomalies thought to be of archaeological origin probably relating to the former Transit Pavilion.
Watching briefs during the construction works in the early C21 revealed the remnants of the cellar beneath George Airey’s 1837-1838 Magnetic Observatory of 1862 and several wells were recorded in 2005.
EXTENT OF SCHEDULING
The site's boundary is formed by perimeter walls with railings and entrances of multiple periods.
EXCLUSIONS
The scheduled area is defined by the boundary of the Royal Observatory site. The following items are excluded from the scheduling, although the ground beneath them all is included:
- the Harrison Planetarium;
- all modern boundary walls, railings and gates;
- benches;
- low lights;
- all bins (waste, recycling and cigarette);
- external electrical supply posts;
- bollards;
- modern garden structures and planters;
- bicycle stands;
- the modern stairs and balustrades between the South Building courtyard and Planetarium and those leading up to the South Building main entrance;
- the modern storage shed to the south of the South Building;
- all modern external surfaces;
- the external lift to the south of Flamsteed House.
