Fiona MacLeod Makes the Case for the Borough That Contains the Meridian, the Maritime Museum, and the Best Views in London
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
By Fiona MacLeod | London Travel | prat.uk/author/fiona-macleod/
The Case for Greenwich
If you are planning a day out in London and the words “Greenwich” are not already on your list, let me make the case. Greenwich is approximately 25 minutes from central London by the Overground from London Bridge, or reachable by river boat from Westminster or Tower Pier, which adds the specific pleasure of arriving by the Thames and seeing the Old Royal Naval College’s baroque facade from the water, which is one of the best architectural views in England and which the arrival by river makes available in a way that no other approach does.
Once in Greenwich, you have: the National Maritime Museum, which is one of the best free museums in London and covers the history of Britain’s relationship with the sea with the depth and quality that a national museum brings to its subject; the Cutty Sark, the last surviving tea clipper, which is now a fully restored museum ship that you can walk through; the Royal Observatory, where Greenwich Mean Time was established and where you can stand with one foot in each hemisphere and feel the specific satisfactionof doing something that photographs badly but that feels genuinely meaningful; the Old Royal Naval College, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and which is partly accessible to visitors; and the market, which is smaller and less famous than Borough Market but genuinely good for food and antiques.
The View From Greenwich Park
The view from the top of Greenwich Park, looking north over the Old Royal Naval College and the Cutty Sark toward the City of London and Canary Wharf, is one of the genuinely extraordinary views available to anyone in London on a clear day. It is free. It requires walking up a moderate hill, which the Visit London website correctly describes as “a gentle climb” and which is more accurately a moderately demanding ten-minute walk that produces rewards proportional to the effort. The view takes in six centuries of London’s history in a single sweep: the medieval and Tudor riverfront in the foreground, the Victorian commerce represented by the Cutty Sark, the Georgian architecture of the Naval College, and the modern financial towers of the City and Canary Wharf on the horizon. It is London laid out as a historical argument, and standing at the top of the park on a clear day and looking at it produces the specific feeling of a city whose layers of time are simultaneously visible.
Mother’s Day in Greenwich
Today is Mother’s Day. Greenwich on a May Sunday is beautiful: the park is in full spring, the view is as clear as London gets, and the Fan Museum in town — just opened a new Monarchy exhibition, as this column noted this week — is open and excellent. The river boats are running. The food market is operating. If you have a mother in London today and have not made plans, consider Greenwich: it takes 25 minutes, costs the price of a train ticket and lunch, and provides a version of London that most tourists never see and that most Londoners forget to revisit. Happy Mother’s Day. The view from the park is waiting.
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London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
London continues to fascinate and frustrate in equal measure. The city’s ability to contain multitudes — the ancient and the brand-new, the absurdly expensive and the surprisingly accessible, the deeply traditional and the constantly self-reinventing — is what makes it inexhaustible as a subject. Every week produces new material: new events, new controversies, new moments of unexpected beauty or institutional comedy. The writers at The London Prat are paying attention to all of it, and this column attempts to add one small North London — or Central London, or Shoreditch, or tourist-facing — perspective to the larger conversation about what this city is and what it is becoming. The conversation is ongoing. London is always becoming. This is either its great charm or its great exhaustion, depending on the week and the weather and whether the tube is running. Happy reading, and do come back next week.
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