Long-time London resident and avid museum and theatre-goer. I started this blog in 2014, and got serious about it in 2020 when I realised how much I missed arts and culture during lockdowns. I go to a lot more events than anyone would think is sensible, and love sharing my thoughts in the forms of reviews, the occasional thought piece, and travel recommendations when I leave my London HQ.
A circular walking tour from Maze Hill station takes in Greenwich Park, Deptford Creek and a riverfront walk.
Today’s walk comes once again from Gilly Cameron-Cooper’s Walking London’s Waterways. This walk, ‘Royal Favourites: Greenwich Circular’, is less waterway-focused than many others in the book, but packed with historic interest.
A Walk Through Royal and Maritime History in Greenwich
If there is one thing that Greenwich has in spades, it’s royal and maritime history. A lot of this history is still visible today. On the maritime side there is the National Maritime Museum, the Cutty Sark and the Old Royal Naval College. On the royal side there is the Queen’s House, or Queen Elizabeth Oak in Greenwich Park. But there is a lot more below the surface. Did you know, for example, that Charles II planted a lot of the trees in Greenwich Park? Or that Henry VIII founded the royal dockyard at Deptford? Or that Elizabeth I knighted Sir Francis Drake here using the same sword Elizabeth II later used to knight Sir Francis Chichester? Today’s walk introduces us to these stories and more.
This is the third walk we have done following Gilly Cameron-Cooper’s book Walking London’s Waterways. The first two took us from Wapping to Westferry, and then around the Rotherhithe Peninsula. Today’s walk marks something of a change. In fact, apart from seeing the Thames in the background, we will be about halfway through the walk before we see a body of water. It is nonetheless a fascinating 5km round trip, and the views are worth the small climb.
Historic Greenwich Walking Tour – Around Greenwich Park Part I
Today’s walk, if followed to the letter, starts and ends at Maze Hill Station. I’m not familiar with the area and found the station a little hard to locate on foot, but it is very handy for Greenwich Park.
Greenwich Park is a former royal hunting park, enclosed all the way back in 1433. Henry VIII introduced deer here for hunting, and James I built an expensive brick wall which still mostly defines the modern boundary. It was Charles II who chose this as the site for the Royal Observatory in 1675. The Queen’s House, at the lower end of Greenwich Park, might sound like it’s related to Elizabeth I, but was in fact built for Queen Anne (as an apology from James I after he swore in her presence). Elizabeth I and her sister Mary lived in Greenwich as children, in the now-demolished Tudor Palace of Placentia.
Still today, Greenwich Park provides wonderful views over London. The fact that so many locations had line of sight to Greenwich from the river was important in maritime history. It is from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich that ships synchronised their clocks, by observing a red ball dropping down a mast at exactly 13.00 GMT. This was first used in 1833. Other locations could extend the timekeeping network, for example St Anne’s church in Limehouse which dropped a golden ball when it saw the Greenwich ball being dropped. Ships which couldn’t see as far as Greenwich Park could thus still keep relatively accurate time.
Historic Greenwich Walking Tour – Around Greenwich Park Part II
A spot apparently beloved of Elizabeth I, with a related quote running around the benches.
‘Queen Elizabeth Oak’, seen here, actually predates Elizabeth I by quite a bit. In the 12th Century it was already big and hollow enough to double as a lockup. The tree died in the 19th Century, but a network of ivy held it up until 1991 when it finally collapsed.
The Royal Observatory is currently off limits to support social distancing. But you can still see the statue of General Wolfe, a Greenwich local who won victory for the English in Quebec, at the cost of his own life. On the left is Flamsteed House, named for the first Astronomer Royal. This is of course the home of Greenwich Mean Time. A line in the courtyard of Flamsteed House marks the spot, and at night a laser marks the route of the Greenwich Meridian.
This may be hard to believe (as it’s very hard to capture in a photo), but these are Anglo-Saxon tumuli (tombs). It was a slight detour from the walk in the book, but I love a bit of Anglo-Saxon history. Even in person they are really just gentle undulations so it requires some imagination.
And now we leave Greenwich Park via The Avenue. On the way out, we say hello to one of my favourite public artworks in London, Yinka Shonibare’s Nelson’s Ship in a Bottle. It was originally a commission for the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Historic Greenwich Walking Tour – Greenwich to Deptford
St Alfege’s Church. St Alfege was an Archbishop of Canterbury, murdered by Vikings on this site in 1012. The current church is by Nicholas Hawksmoor, student of Christopher Wren and famous in his own right. General Wolfe, whose statue we saw earlier, is buried here.
The graveyard attached to St Alfege’s is now a nice little park.
We have now arrived at Deptford Creek, with the creek very much visible at Thames low tide. The origin of the name Deptford is ‘deep ford’, and this is actually the outlet of an almost lost river, the Ravensbourne. Not quite as lost as the Neckinger or Walbrook, but getting there. Henry VIII founded a royal naval dockyard at Deptford, and it remained a major shipping centre for centuries. Francis Drake was knighted here; and James Cook had his ship Resolution fitted out at Deptford before heading off for Antarctic waters. These days Deptford contains a lot more new-build housing estates than shipyards.
There are great views from Deptford up and down the Thames. I suggest you stop and admire them before we continue on our walk!
This very peculiar statue is of Peter the Great, and was a gift from the Russian people in 2000. It commemorates the time in 1698 when Peter the Great came to Deptford for a few months to study shipbuilding. He came semi-incognito in that he was not there in an official Head of State capacity. But at the same time he had a huge retinue including several dwarves, one of whom is shown here. So not as incognito as all that. Peter stayed in a house belonging to John Evelyn, and trashed the place, shooting holes through paintings and wrecking the furniture. I cannot explain why this statue has such a tiny head, but it is certainly a good illustration of a strange footnote in London history.
Historic Greenwich Walking Tour – Along the Thames
This stretch of the Thames gives good opportunities for mudlarking at low tide. With appropriate permits and when Covid measures reduce, of course.
The Cutty Sark is a famous 19th Century clipper. Even after steam power emerged, clippers continued to transport many products. The name ‘clipper’ comes from clipping travel time off journeys, so these boats were built for speed. It was the Suez Canal which in the end made this mode of transport less viable. A devastating fire in 2007 could have been the end for the Cutty Sark, but luckily it was already undergoing restoration so a lot of the original timbers were offsite.
The former Royal Naval College stands on the site of the Tudor Palace of Placentia. William and Mary later founded a hospital for seamen here; Peter the Great thought the lovely views were wasted on worn out old sailors. I think someone with such a small head should mind their own business. The hospital finally closed in 1869 – numbers had steadily decreased since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. As things open up again, the Painted Hall is well worth a look.
The Trafalgar Tavern’s shape apparently echoes Elizabethan man-o’-war ships. It reminds me of old seafront hotels. Charles Dickens set a scene here in Our Mutual Friend.
We end our Greenwich walk at Trinity Hospital, a group of Gothic-style almshouses. It is the oldest surviving building in Greenwich, founded in 1611. The site’s charitable purpose as an almshouse continues today for local residents in need. The wall directly opposite has stones to mark extremely high tides, such as one in 1928.
If you will excuse the backtracking, we will leave the Greenwich Peninsula via the foot tunnel to the Isle of Dogs, rather than heading back to Maze Hill as our book suggests. The foot tunnel opened in 1902, replacing a long-standing ferry service. It’s a great bit of Victorian engineering, so if you haven’t been through before then I recommend checking it out!
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14 thoughts on “Historic Greenwich – A Walking Tour”
14 thoughts on “Historic Greenwich – A Walking Tour”