Greenwich ( , , ) is an affluent area in south-east London, England, within the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross. It contains the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Maritime Greenwich.
Greenwich is notable for its astronomical and maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. The town became the site of a royal palace, the Palace of Placentia, from the 15th century and was the birthplace of many Tudors, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. The palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War and was demolished, eventually being replaced by the Royal Naval Hospital for Sailors, designed by Sir Christopher Wren and his assistant Nicholas Hawksmoor. These buildings became the Royal Naval College in 1873, and they remained a military education establishment until 1998, when they passed into the hands of the Greenwich Foundation. The historic rooms within these buildings remain open to the public; other buildings are used by the University of Greenwich and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance.
The town became a popular resort in the 18th century, and many grand houses were built there, such as Vanbrugh Castle (1717) on Maze Hill and the Ranger's House (1722) near Blackheath. From the Georgian period estates of houses were constructed above the town centre. The maritime connections of Greenwich were celebrated in the 20th century, with the siting of the historic vessels Cutty Sark and Gipsy Moth IV next to the river front, and the National Maritime Museum in the former buildings of the Royal Hospital School in 1934.
Historically an ancient parish in the Blackheath Hundred of Kent, the town formed part of the growing conurbation of Victorian London in the 19th century. When the County of London, an administrative area designed to replace the Metropolitan Board of Works, was formed in 1889, the parish merged with those of Charlton-next-Woolwich, Deptford St Nicholas and Kidbrooke to create the Metropolitan Borough of Greenwich. When local government in London was again reformed in 1965, it merged with most of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich, creating what is now the Royal Borough of Greenwich, a local authority district of Greater London.
History
Toponymy The place-name 'Greenwich' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 918, where it appears as Gronewic. It is recorded as Grenewic in 964, and as Grenawic in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1013. It is Grenviz in the Domesday Book of 1086, and Grenewych in the Taxatio Ecclesiastica of 1291. The name means 'green wic''', indicating that Greenwich was what is known as a -wich town or emporium, from the Latin 'vicus'.Eilert Ekwall, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names, p. 204.
The settlement later became known as East Greenwich to distinguish it from West Greenwich or Deptford Strond, the part of Deptford adjacent to the River Thames, but the use of East Greenwich to mean the whole of the town of Greenwich died out in the 19th century. However, Greenwich was divided into the registration subdistricts of Greenwich East and Greenwich West from the beginning of civil registration in 1837, the boundary running down what is now Greenwich Church Street and Croom's Hill, although more modern references to "East" and "West" Greenwich probably refer to the areas east and west of the Royal Naval College and National Maritime Museum corresponding with the West Greenwich council ward. An article in The Times of 13 October 1967 stated:"Greenwich-the instant village", Brandon Green, The Times, 13 October 1967; p. 11. East Greenwich, gateway to the Blackwall Tunnel, remains solidly working class, the manpower for one eighth of London's heavy industry. West Greenwich is a hybrid: the spirit of Nelson, the Cutty Sark, the Maritime Museum, an industrial waterfront and a number of elegant houses, ripe for development.
Manor of East Greenwich Royal charters granted to English colonists in North America,Colonial Charters, Grants and Related Documents . as well as in Company Bombay and St Helena, often used the name of the manor of East Greenwich for describing the tenure (from the Latin verb teneo, hold) as that of free socage.Manor of East Greenwich . New England charters provided that the grantees should hold their lands "as of his Majesty's manor of East Greenwich". This was in relation to the principle of land tenure under English law, that the ruling monarch (king or queen) was paramount lord of all the soil in the terra regis,National Archives, Great Domesday . while all others held their lands, directly or indirectly, under the monarch. Land outside the physical boundaries of England, as in America, was treated as belonging constructively to one of the existing royal manors, and from Tudor times grants frequently used the name of the manor of East Greenwich,Words used in The First Charter of Virginia; 10 April 1606 "...To BE HOLDEN of Us, [King James I] our heirs and Successors, as of our Manor at East-Greenwich, in the County of Kent, in free and common Soccage only, and not in Capite." but some 17th-century grants named the castle of Windsor.Words used in Charter for the Province of Pennsylvania-1681 "...to bee holden of Us [King Charles II], Our heires and Successors, Kings of England, as of Our Castle of Windsor in Our County of Berks, in free and comon Socage, by fealty only for all Services, and not in Capite or by Knights Service.""N.N." On the Tenure of the Manor of East Greenwich .Edward P. Cheyney, The Manor of East Greenwich, American Historical Review, Volume 11, 1 October 1905. Places in North America that have taken the name "East Greenwich" include a township in Gloucester County, New Jersey, a hamlet in Washington County, New York, and a town in Kent County, Rhode Island. Greenwich, Connecticut was also named after Greenwich.
Early settlement
Tumuli to the south-west of Flamsteed House,Flamsteed House – designed and built by Sir Christopher Wren in 1675–76, was the home of the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed, and the heart of Charles II's new Royal Observatory. in Greenwich Park, are thought to be early Bronze Age barrows re-used by the Saxons in the 6th century as burial grounds. To the east between the Vanbrugh and Maze Hill Gates is the site of a Roman villa or temple. A small area of red paving tesserae protected by railings marks the spot. It was excavated in 1902, and 300 coins were found dating from the emperors Claudius and Honorius to the 5th century. This was excavated by the Channel 4 television programme Time Team in 1999, broadcast in 2000, and further investigations were made by the same group in 2003.
The Roman road from London to Dover, Watling Street, crossed the high ground to the south of Greenwich, through Blackheath. This followed the line of an earlier Celtic route from Canterbury to St Albans.The Roman Watling Street: from London to High Cross O. Roucoux, (Dunstable Museum Trust, 1984) . As late as Henry V, Greenwich was only a fishing town, with a safe anchorage in the river.
Viking During the reign of Æthelred the Unready, the Danish fleet anchored in the River Thames off Greenwich for over three years, and the army encamped on the hill above. From here they attacked Kent and, in the year 1012, took the city of Canterbury, making Archbishop Alphege their prisoner for seven months in their camp at Greenwich, at that time within the county of Kent. They stoned him to death for his refusal to allow his ransom (3,000 pieces of silver) to be paid; and kept his body, until the reported blossoming of a stick that had been immersed in his blood. For this miracle his body was released to his followers, he achieved sainthood for his martyrdom and, in the 12th century, the parish church was dedicated to him. The present church on the site west of the town centre is St Alfege's Church, designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in 1714 and completed in 1718.
Norman The Domesday Book of 1086 records the manor of Grenviz in the hundred of Grenviz as held by Bishop Odo of Bayeux;Open Domesday Online: Greenwich his lands were seized by the crown in 1082. The name of the hundred was changed to Blackheath when the site of the hundred court was moved there in the 12th century. There has been a royal palace or hunting lodge here since before 1300, when Edward I is known to have made offerings at the chapel of the Virgin Mary.'Greenwich', The Environs of London: volume 4: Counties of Herts, Essex & Kent (1796), pp. 426–93 , accessed: 26 May 2007.
Plantagenet Subsequent monarchs were regular visitors, with Henry IV making his will here, and Henry V granting the manor, for life, to Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, who died at Greenwich in 1426. The palace was created by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, Henry V's younger brother and regent to his son Henry VI in 1447; he enclosed the park and erected a tower (Greenwich Castle) on the hill now occupied by the Royal Observatory. The Thames-side palace was renamed the Palace of Placentia or Pleasaunce by Henry VI's consort Margaret of Anjou after Humphrey's death. The palace was completed and further enlarged by Edward IV, and in 1466 it was granted to his queen, Elizabeth. Edward IV had previously been given permission by the Pope to establish a Franciscan friary of Observant Friars in Greenwich, this was done in 1485, two years after his death; the first Observant House in England, it was located on land adjacent to the palace. After rejecting papal authority in 1534, the Franciscan Observants were suppressed; refounded as Franciscan Conventual, the friary was dissolved in 1538, then re-established in 1555 for Observants, before the friars were finally expelled in 1559 and the friary was demolished in 1662.
Ultimately it was because the palace and its grounds were a royal possession (with a useful hill) that it was chosen as the site for Charles II's Royal Observatory, from which stemmed Greenwich's subsequent global role as originator of the modern prime meridian.
Tudor The palace was the principal residence of Henry VII whose sons Henry (later Henry VIII) and Edmund Tudor were born here, and baptised in St Alphege's. Henry favoured Greenwich over nearby Eltham Palace, the former principal royal palace in south London, which was not on the River Thames and so was less accessible. Henry extended Greenwich Palace and it became his principal London seat until Whitehall Palace was built in the 1530s. Henry VIII married Catherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves at Greenwich, and both of his daughters, Mary (18 February 1516) and Elizabeth (7 September 1533), were born at Greenwich. His son Edward VI also died there at age 15.
The palace of Placentia, in turn, became Elizabeth's favourite summer residence. Both she and her sister Mary used the palace extensively, and Elizabeth's Council planned the Spanish Armada campaign there in 1588.
Stuart
James I carried out the final remodelling work on Greenwich Palace, granting the manor to his wife Queen Anne of Denmark. In 1616 Anne commissioned Inigo Jones to design and build the surviving Queen's House as the final addition to the palace.
Charles I granted the manor to his wife Queen Henrietta Maria, for whom Inigo Jones completed the Queen's House. During the English Civil War, the palace was used as a biscuit factory and prisoner-of-war camp. Then, in the Interregnum, the palace and park were seized to become a 'mansion' for the Lord Protector.
By the time of the Restoration, the Palace of Placentia had fallen into disuse and was pulled down. New buildings began to be established as a grand palace for Charles II, but only the King Charles block was completed. Charles II also redesigned and replanted Greenwich Park and founded and built the Royal Observatory.