Greenwich
Greenwich Observatory
Erected in 1833, the
Greenwich Time Ball was one of the world's first visual time signals.
The ball, which drops daily at 1300, was used to check marine chronometers by
sailors on the Thames.
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the British Naval Museums
The ensemble of buildings at Greenwich, an outlying district of London, and the park in which they are set, symbolize English artistic and scientific endeavour in the 17th and 18th centuries. The Queen's House (by Inigo Jones) was the first Palladian building in England, while the complex that was until recently the Royal Naval College was designed by Christopher Wren. The park, laid out on the basis of an original design by André Le Nôtre, contains the Old Royal Observatory, the work of Wren and the scientist Robert Hooke.