Blackheath Avenue
London SE10 8XJ
Thursday May 4 2017
Thursday May 4 2017
The planned schedule had us down to visit the World
of Rugby at Twickenham, which on closer inspection is having a makeover so we
were spared from what was probably our least anticipated visit. As an easy
substitute we therefore headed south to the fertile area of Greenwich for
today’s trip to the Royal Observatory.
Having climbed the steep hill we sat theoretically
to enjoy the view – one of London’s best – but today in spite of a cold wind
the air was grimy with a mixture of mist and pollution. We also thought we
would wait while the youth of Europe milled around taking photos of themselves
astride the Meridian Line.
However once you pay your entrance fee and pass
behind the original observatory building you enter quite an oasis with a small
neatly planted courtyard garden laid out in the style of the Stuart building. The
original building went up in just over a
year and was designed by Sir Christopher Wren and was in fact the first purpose
built project for scientific purposes
with the possibility for the Astronomer Royal to ‘live over the shop’ and
Flamsteed was the first to take up this post.
I had imagined the Observatory to be full of dusty
old planet diagrams of the Solar system but in fact at least half of it is
presented as a ‘family house’ with snippets of biographical detail of the ten
Astronomers Royal (Astronomer Royals?) who lived here. Maskelyne was the first
to bring his family – one daughter only – but we were charmed to see details of
Margeret’s developmental milestones: weaned at 8 months and walking at thirteen
and even immunised against smallpox as a toddler . The exhibits are sparse with
one cabinet containing herbal remedies for ‘upset stomachs’ with ginger being
well promoted.
Others show simple explanatory charts as might
appeal to children. The portraits include Herschel and his sister Caroline,
discoverers of Uranus and eight comets respectively, who would have visited the
Maskelynes. I particularly liked Maskelyne’s bespoke ‘stargazing’ outfit – a
mixture of linen, wool and silk fibres (his sister had handily married Clive of
India and sent him the fabric) with little flaps to go over his feet. Looking
at the Heavens involved quite a lot of outdoor standing and peering, and potentially freezing...
The next but one family in contrast had nine children,
not all surviving. Airy was a great organiser and put the Observatory back on a
more scientific basis with a keen eye for data collection (after all the
purpose of the Observatory had been to help the navy navigate better) but this
top flight mathematician also established the 0 meridian with such
accuracy that it was accepted by the rest of the world in 1884. The ‘family’
rooms dedicated to him reflect the man and his many honours rather than
domestic life.
From here you climb a narrow staircase up to the
Octagon Room – from the outside I had thought this something of a vanity
project as of the kind architects sometimes indulge in, Sir Christopher Wren being
no exception. However when you get into the Octagon Room, and Jo and I had it
to ourselves, you can see the design for what it is – eight tall narrow windows
allow for telescopes to be trained in all and any directions. Between the
windows built into the panelling are a series of Tompion clocks.
One of our earliest Museum visits had been to the Clockmakers' Museum, (since that time moved to the Science Museum) complete with this Londoner's time pieces.
Tompion clocks were very accurate for the
times and the pendulums are hidden in the panelling. This is a beautiful room
mainly because it combines form and function so well with breath taking views.
Going down the other staircase you descend into the
exhibition which gives the context to explain time and the Longitude meridian.
Take a deep breath – the reason navigators needed
to know accurate time at both Greenwich and where they were was to establish
Longitude or rather how far East or West they were. Inaccuracy at sea spelt
disaster as the 1707 Shovell Disaster so clearly
showed.
Such huge loss of life stirred both the public and
the Crown into offering a substantial reward for anyone who came up with a
solution to accurate measurement of Longitude . Time pieces during this era
were heavily dependent on pendulums. As
anyone who has ever tried to move a pendulum clock knows they are
remarkably sensitive to displacement and
sulk very easily. Being aboard a ship was almost wholly incompatible and you
can see why sailors relied on the sun during the day and sand clocks overnight.
Mr Harrison of Lincoln decided to have a go and spent the next 45 years
designing various models referred and preserved in the Museum as H1, 2, 3 & 4 The early one is a brass fantasy in a ship shaped stand but by the end it was actually a watch that permitted the
required level of accuracy and portability. The Crown had changed hands and
there was some demurring about awarding Harrison his prize but he finally
received it and a place in history. The best account of his obsessive pursuit
is in the book ‘Longitude’ by Dava Sobel which lets you understand the
underlying science at the time you read it even if it is difficult to retain.
The rest of this gallery is devoted to other time
pieces – early sundials (not much use in the UK or aboard ships), sand clocks
and of course the development beyond clockwork instruments. With
the development of the railways and later air travel both national and International time-keeping had to be agreed on and maintained to a high
standard,. In the 1940s quartz began to be used as a substitute for pendulums
and now of course most time keeping is digitally managed. The great era of
public clocks is no more (hence my fondness for them when riding London buses)
as everyone carries a time piece with them.
As you leave the Time and Meridian exhibition you
recross the small courtyard and enter a part of the exhibition devoted to some
of Halley’s work. Apparently when he
arrived to take up his post of Astronomer Royal he found Flamsteed’s widow had
stripped the observatory of her husband’s instruments. This building houses the
larger exhibits many of which were purpose built by successive astronomers as
they pursued their individual interests (not entirely what the post was about) There
was a note to say that Halley in spite of his lasting fame was a bit ‘sloppy’
with is recording of data… still his fame lives on.
Not quite understanding the purpose of the various
instruments on display, and for my part a limited interest in planetary motion
(it comes of being very short sighted and living in a light polluted city when
you only see the moon in London ‘once in a blue moon’ so to say, let alone
anything else) we did not linger long here.
This last section apart we enjoyed the Observatory,
its location, its building and its contents. The Greenwich websites are
excellent and virtually anything I tried to check was available and linked to
their range of quite unique exhibits.
Living locally you take them for granted which should not be the case.
PS Some debate but consensus seems to be that the
plural of Astronomer Royal is Astronomers Royal…
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