Cutty Sark, London

One of the fastest tea clippers in the world, the Cutty Sark is one of Greenwich’s key tourist attractions, with hundreds of thousands of annual visitors. Find out more about why this ship is so important, and what there is to see and do on board today.

A Short History of the Cutty Sark

I have lived in London for years now. So long, in fact, that London’s most-visited attractions never occurs to me any more. The ones I haven’t been to already, I mean. Take the Cutty Sark, for instance. I’ve been past it countless times, on walks like this, or on my way to see exhibitions like this or this. But I was at a loose end a while back, and it was the end of summer at the time. Where could to enjoy some indoor-outdoor flow and somewhere nearby for a drink or a spot of lunch afterwards? Why not the Cutty Sark?

Why not, indeed? It is a famous museum ship on my doorstep, after all. But why is it famous? Well, much better I recount the story of the Cutty Sark to you, and save you reading a rather dry Wikipedia entry. It all started in the late 1860s. There was big money to be made in transporting tea to England (and elsewhere) from China. So much money, in fact, that it was worth innovating on ships to be the first home and command the higher prices. Tea was a seasonal product at the time, you see, because it had to come by sailing ship (or more expensive overland routes).

John Willis, of Jock Willis Shipping Line, already had a few ships in his fleet including the speedy Tweed. But he thought he could do better. So he engaged Hercules Linton to design a new ship, and got a great price on building it from Scott & Linton. So great, in fact, they went bankrupt during construction which was a real headache. But the Cutty Sark was finished nonetheless, and launched on 22 November 1869 by the wife of its captain, George Moodie.

1869 was coincidentally the year that the Suez Canal opened. The Cutty Sark had less than a decade of tea runs to China before steamships through the canal put an end to tea clippers. It started to transport wool from Australia instead, as well as other goods. By 1922, it was the only tea clipper left, by this time operating as the Ferreira for a Portuguese firm of the same name. Retired merchant navy captain Wilfred Dowman spotted it in Cornwall, realised its importance, and managed eventually to purchase it. The Cutty Sark then started one of several second lives. First as a cadet training ship for the Incorporated Thames Nautical Training College in Greenhithe. Then as part of the Festival of Britain at Deptford. And finally as a museum ship, which she still is today.

What is So Special About the Cutty Sark?

I’ve already mentioned one of the reasons. She was one of the fastest clippers in the world. Let me clarify that. She never actually made it back to London first in the tea clipper race, formal or informal. Her fastest time from China was 107 days. The SS Agamemnon did it in 99 once. Her fastest logged speed was 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph), and her greatest recorded distance in noon to noon sights was 363 nautical miles (672 km; 418 mi). Pretty fast but not the fastest. Where the Cutty Sark was the fastest was as a wool clipper. She held multiple records for a period bringing wool back from Australia in as little as 70 days. It seems strange in the days of air travel that you could get back from Sydney faster than Shanghai, but there you go.

The Cutty Sark is also one of only three ships still in existence to have an intact composite construction of a wooden hull on an iron frame. And it’s lucky that is its construction, otherwise we wouldn’t have very much to visit today. I’m referring here to a fire that broke out in 2007 during some restoration work. It was a big fire, taking hours to bring under control. However, because restoration work was ongoing a lot of the remaining original timbers had already been moved offsite. And the iron frame lucky withstood the damage. The fire added a lot to the cost, but the final estimate was that only about 5% of the original ship was damaged. Phew.

And lastly, the Cutty Sark is a great historic survivor. As we learned above, she was obsolete almost as soon as she set sail. Nevertheless, she persisted, to misuse the phrase. Her rigging and other elements were changed to suit shifting purposes, crew size and more. The 2007 fire was not even the only fire she has experienced. But the Cutty Sark has survived it all, and is still here to bring to life the end of a sailing era. I’m not saying it’s because she was named for a witch (who in turn was named for a shirt), but maybe it didn’t hurt.

Controversy and the Carbuncle Cup

The Cutty Sark is so well-imbedded in the Greenwich landscape today that I’ve never really questioned her presentation. But it was so controversial at the time that it won the Carbuncle Cup in 2012. The Carbuncle Cup, which ran from 2006-2018 and started up again in 2024, is a prize for “the ugliest building in the United Kingdom completed in the last 12 months”. The Cutty Sark is a ship, and its visitor centre doesn’t seem that offensive, so what’s the big deal?

Well part of it is that people take historic ships very seriously. During the major renovations, there was a contingent pushing for the Cutty Sark to be made seaworthy once more. It wasn’t, and some of the decisions that provoked outrage and led to the Carbuncle Cup award were:

• The manner of supporting the Cutty Sark in the air with canted steel props
• A hole cut through the side as a new entrance
• The fact that the space underneath the ship can be used for event hire

You can read more here, but frankly the assertion that the design is “tragically defiling the very thing it sets out to save” seems a little over the top. Not least because the Cutty Sark was already not seaworthy, already in dry dock with props that were damaging its hull, and had a different hole cut through as an entrance decades ago.

I actually quite like the design. I would go so far as to say that’s the best thing about it. The Cutty Sark is lifted up and enclosed by a glass canopy. From the outside it looks like it’s riding the waves, and being able to walk underneath the ship is impressive. And look, event hire helps keep a lot of heritage sites going! Not to mention you need somewhere for ticket sales, a shop, and a café. The Vasa Museum design is better, sure, but this is a different scale of ship and a different kind of site.

The Visitor Experience

So once you get over any offended architectural sensibilities and head inside, what then? I was actually not too impressed by the visitor experience inside the ship itself. I found it very busy. You enter into the cargo hold. It’s quite dark, with a nice ship smell. You can see the ship’s iron frame very well here, as you read introductory information. Some of it is text on stacks of reproduction tea chests, while some is on video screens. But in both cases it’s a lot of information on different topics, and difficult to know what to focus on. A video in an amphitheatre built as part of the renovations does help. There’s just not a lot of space to take your time reading and digesting all the different narratives on offer.

Heading up a level, we move forward in time. It’s now less about tea, and more about wool and other voyages. There’s information about life on board, and some interactive games to play. Maybe it’s that the atmosphere is less oppressive and more spacious, but I started to enjoy it more. There are portholes here so you can peep out to Greenwich beyond.

And heading up a final time, you’re on deck. I visited on a lovely sunny day, so could take my time exploring and admiring the view. On a busy day it pays to be patient, as there are various cabins to poke your head into, but a queue of people waiting to do so. It was interesting, but I wouldn’t have missed too much by not seeing them. The rigging overhead is impressive. I don’t know how I would fare attempting the rig climb experience on offer (for an additional fee)!

And then downstairs in the dreaded event hire space, we stopped for a coffee to end our trip. This gave us a good opportunity to explore the underside of the ship and those struts holding it up. There’s a bit more information down here to read, mostly about the ship’s preservation and restoration. There’s also a slightly incongruous collection of figureheads. Incongruous not because they’re not nautical, because clearly they are, but because they’re about the only historic objects here, and not tied to the Cutty Sark in particular. They’re in fact all from Merchant Navy ships, and were the collection of Sydney Cumbers who went by the nickname Long John Silver. Sounds like quite a character.

Final Thoughts on the Cutty Sark

So what did I think after my first visit to the Cutty Sark? Well, I’m glad I came. It’s such an interesting historic survivor, as we discussed above. And I learned a lot about the last days of sail-powered trade before steam ships took over. There are things I would do differently about what information is on view and its presentation. But a historic ship is not a blank canvas, or an easy one to work with. The controversial visitor centre gives a bit more space to play with – perhaps better use of this to decompress some of the narratives would help?

Slight griping aside, I think the Cutty Sark is a great addition to a day out in Greenwich. You can easily combine it with a waterfront walk or a trip to the National Maritime Museum or Queen’s House. Or the foot tunnel under the Thames is right on the Cutty Sark’s doorstep! I don’t think most people would visit here more than once, although there is a programme of special events. Maybe a return trip for the rig climb one day if I’m feeling brave.

After our visit, we sat next door at the Gipsy Moth pub and looked back at the Cutty Sark. It’s tall masts and rigging are the faintest of echoes of what London’s waterways and the world’s ports once looked like. There may be differing views about how to best preserve and interpret heritage like this. But for now, the Cutty Sark takes pride of place at the heart of maritime Greenwich. I wonder what John Willis and Hercules Linton would think of their pet project if they saw her now?

Salterton Arts Review’s rating: 3/5