Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Step inside Greenwich, where time begins. From Flamsteed vs Newton at the Royal Observatory to Tudor hunts and Blackheath revolts, its royal past unfolds.
In Crown and Country, we visit the Greenwich Royal Observatory, founded by Charles II in 1675 and built by Sir Christopher Wren on old foundations for less than 500 pounds. Its mission was navigation - helping a maritime nation solve longitude. First Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed spent over 40 years charting the heavens, often from a simple shed with a roof he could open, lying on a mattress to map stars along what he believed the true meridian.
Perfectionism led to a bitter feud with Sir Isaac Newton. With Edmund Halley and a royal warrant, Newton seized Flamsteed's unfinished data and published it in 400 volumes. Flamsteed bought 300 copies and burned them, calling the act a tribute to heavenly truth. He died in 1719; five years later his wife issued a corrected edition of his life's work.
Beyond the Meridian Line, Greenwich Park is the oldest royal park in London, dotted with Saxon burial mounds and deer descended from herds brought in 1515. Henry VIII staged tilts, wrestling and swordplay here, while his childhood unfolded at nearby Eltham Palace. Edward IV built Eltham’s Great Hall in the 1470s; the palace later declined after the Civil War under the regicide Nathaniel Rich, before Stephen and Virginia Courtauld revived it in 1934 with a stylish Art Deco interior.
Across Blackheath came the Cornish rebellion of 1497, while an earlier climate of suspicion saw Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, punished for alleged witchcraft. In town, St Alfege Church by Hawksmoor recalls the martyred archbishop, and Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House bridges park and river, its view protected by Wren’s Royal Hospital for Seamen. Londoners once thronged the Greenwich Fair for Richardson’s half hour theatre and the reckless tradition of running down the hill. Nearby, the ancient Queen Elizabeth Oak finally fell in 1991; a new oak was planted beside it by the Duke of Edinburgh to mark the 40th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
Explore how monarchy, science and landscape meet in the place where the world sets its time.
#Greenwich #RoyalObservatory #PrimeMeridian #Flamsteed #Newton #ElthamPalace #Blackheath #CrownAndCountry
Step inside Greenwich, where time begins. From Flamsteed vs Newton at the Royal Observatory to Tudor hunts and Blackheath revolts, its royal past unfolds.
In Crown and Country, we visit the Greenwich Royal Observatory, founded by Charles II in 1675 and built by Sir Christopher Wren on old foundations for less than 500 pounds. Its mission was navigation - helping a maritime nation solve longitude. First Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed spent over 40 years charting the heavens, often from a simple shed with a roof he could open, lying on a mattress to map stars along what he believed the true meridian.
Perfectionism led to a bitter feud with Sir Isaac Newton. With Edmund Halley and a royal warrant, Newton seized Flamsteed's unfinished data and published it in 400 volumes. Flamsteed bought 300 copies and burned them, calling the act a tribute to heavenly truth. He died in 1719; five years later his wife issued a corrected edition of his life's work.
Beyond the Meridian Line, Greenwich Park is the oldest royal park in London, dotted with Saxon burial mounds and deer descended from herds brought in 1515. Henry VIII staged tilts, wrestling and swordplay here, while his childhood unfolded at nearby Eltham Palace. Edward IV built Eltham’s Great Hall in the 1470s; the palace later declined after the Civil War under the regicide Nathaniel Rich, before Stephen and Virginia Courtauld revived it in 1934 with a stylish Art Deco interior.
Across Blackheath came the Cornish rebellion of 1497, while an earlier climate of suspicion saw Eleanor Cobham, wife of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, punished for alleged witchcraft. In town, St Alfege Church by Hawksmoor recalls the martyred archbishop, and Inigo Jones’s Queen’s House bridges park and river, its view protected by Wren’s Royal Hospital for Seamen. Londoners once thronged the Greenwich Fair for Richardson’s half hour theatre and the reckless tradition of running down the hill. Nearby, the ancient Queen Elizabeth Oak finally fell in 1991; a new oak was planted beside it by the Duke of Edinburgh to mark the 40th year of Queen Elizabeth’s reign.
Explore how monarchy, science and landscape meet in the place where the world sets its time.
#Greenwich #RoyalObservatory #PrimeMeridian #Flamsteed #Newton #ElthamPalace #Blackheath #CrownAndCountry
