Description of the attraction
Greenwich is an area in southeast London. He gave the name to the prime meridian and the starting point of time zones - Greenwich Mean Time.
For many years Greenwich was the royal residence. During the Civil War, the royal palace was destroyed, and in its place the architect Christopher Wren (the author of St. Peter's Cathedral in London) built the Greenwich Hospital - modeled on the Parisian Invalides. The Queen's House, built by the architect Inigo Jones for Anna of Denmark, has also survived. It now forms the centerpiece of the National Maritime Museum. Another attraction related to the sea is the Cutty Sark tea clipper in dry dock in Greenwich. In 2007, a fire broke out on board, but fortunately, not long before that, most of the ship's wooden parts, including the bow figure, were removed for restoration. The Cutty Sark clipper has now been fully restored.
But Greenwich acquired the main fame thanks to the Royal Observatory located here. Since ancient times, it has been used as a reference point in calculations and mapping, work was carried out here to refine the coordinates and observe celestial objects. In 1851, the geographic meridian passing through the axis of the transit instrument of the Greenwich Observatory was adopted as the prime meridian. At the international conference in 1884, it was decided to accept this meridian as the world zero point of reference. For a long time, the meridian was designated by a copper strip, then it was replaced by a steel one, and since December 16, 1999, a powerful green laser beam has been shining along the prime meridian. Greenwich meridian not only serves as the starting point for geographic longitudes, but it is also the middle meridian of time zone zero. Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) was taken as the starting point for time zones before the introduction of UTC.
