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Scottish Sun
07-07-2025
- Science
- Scottish Sun
Historic attraction where ‘time began' in the UK reveals £77million redevelopment
Here's how to stand in both western and eastern hemispheres when you visit CLOCKED IT Historic attraction where 'time began' in the UK reveals £77million redevelopment Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THE Royal Observatory in Greenwich is undergoing a multi-million pound transformation. Work will start in September to upgrade the observatory building with new gardens as well as accessibility routes to the telescope for the first time. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 5 New designs for the Royal Observatory have been revealed Credit: Jamie Fobert Architects 5 A new lift will allow those who need accessibility options to see the telescope Credit: Jamie Fobert Architects The observatory, which is within Royal Museums Greenwich, is marking its 350th anniversary with a transformation. The project called 'First Light' will upgrade and create new spaces around the observatory. Of the £77million budget, £50.5 million has been secured so far, with the money going towards an entry pavilion for visitors as well as a garden walk. Accessibility will increase around the site with new routes set to be created to the Great Equatorial Telescope and Planetarium. This will include a lift tower, which will provide full accessibility to the Great Equatorial Telescope for the first time. The existing galleries will be refreshed with new and interactive astronomy displays being installed. A new space called 'Astronomers Court' will be created and used for events, retail and a cafe. Outside, there will be new landscaping and the planting of trees and plants to blend the observatory into its surroundings in Greenwich Park. The project is set to begin in autumn 2025 with all work set to be completed by spring 2028. There are warnings of phased closures while work on the project is taking place throughout the observatory. Deer have returned to Greenwich Park 5 There will be a new event space too Credit: Jamie Fobert Architects 5 The observatory building is considered the birthplace of astronomy Credit: Alamy The observatory building was designed by Christopher Wren in 1675 and is Britain's oldest building that was purpose-built for science. The Royal Observatory is the birthplace of astronomy, and is considered where 'time began' because it's the home of Greenwich Mean Time, and the Prime Meridian. Since 1884, the world's time zones have been measured from a line at the Royal Observatory. And GMT, which means Greenwich Mean Time, is what we all set our clocks to. Outside of the Royal Observatory, near the courtyard, is The Meridian Line, and if you put one foot either side of it, you'll be standing in both the western and eastern hemispheres. The Royal Observatory sits on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames. For anyone wanting to visit, the Great Equatorial Telescope is in the Octagon Room, and is the oldest part of the observatory. Entry to the Royal Observatory costs £24 for adults and £12 for children (4-15). Tickets for students are £18 and children under four go free. There's a planetarium there, too, which does a variety of shows and are bookable online. Guided tours around the observatory are an additional £5 per adult and £2.20 for children, which take visitors to see the observatory's most treasured objects. But make sure to check in on the website for opening dates and times as the upgrades might change these. Plus, here's the UK's newest national museum is more like an IKEA store. And attractions across the UK that are the most-visited, and completely free to enter.
The Sun
07-07-2025
- Science
- The Sun
Historic attraction where ‘time began' in the UK reveals £77million redevelopment
THE Royal Observatory in Greenwich is undergoing a multi-million pound transformation. Work will start in September to upgrade the observatory building with new gardens as well as accessibility routes to the telescope for the first time. 5 5 The observatory, which is within Royal Museums Greenwich, is marking its 350th anniversary with a transformation. The project called 'First Light' will upgrade and create new spaces around the observatory. Of the £77million budget, £50.5 million has been secured so far, with the money going towards an entry pavilion for visitors as well as a garden walk. Accessibility will increase around the site with new routes set to be created to the Great Equatorial Telescope and Planetarium. This will include a lift tower, which will provide full accessibility to the Great Equatorial Telescope for the first time. The existing galleries will be refreshed with new and interactive astronomy displays being installed. A new space called 'Astronomers Court' will be created and used for events, retail and a cafe. Outside, there will be new landscaping and the planting of trees and plants to blend the observatory into its surroundings in Greenwich Park. The project is set to begin in autumn 2025 with all work set to be completed by spring 2028. There are warnings of phased closures while work on the project is taking place throughout the observatory. Deer have returned to Greenwich Park 5 5 The observatory building was designed by Christopher Wren in 1675 and is Britain's oldest building that was purpose-built for science. The Royal Observatory is the birthplace of astronomy, and is considered where 'time began' because it's the home of Greenwich Mean Time, and the Prime Meridian. Since 1884, the world's time zones have been measured from a line at the Royal Observatory. And GMT, which means Greenwich Mean Time, is what we all set our clocks to. Outside of the Royal Observatory, near the courtyard, is The Meridian Line, and if you put one foot either side of it, you'll be standing in both the western and eastern hemispheres. The Royal Observatory sits on a hill in Greenwich Park in south east London, overlooking the River Thames. For anyone wanting to visit, the Great Equatorial Telescope is in the Octagon Room, and is the oldest part of the observatory. Entry to the Royal Observatory costs £24 for adults and £12 for children (4-15). Tickets for students are £18 and children under four go free. There's a planetarium there, too, which does a variety of shows and are bookable online. Guided tours around the observatory are an additional £5 per adult and £2.20 for children, which take visitors to see the observatory's most treasured objects. But make sure to check in on the website for opening dates and times as the upgrades might change these. Plus, here's the UK's newest national museum is more like an IKEA store. And attractions across the UK that are the most-visited, and completely free to enter.
Yahoo
23-06-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Royal Observatory Greenwich: The birthplace of modern astronomy turns 350
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. June 22 marks the 350th anniversary of the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the home of the historic Prime Meridian that is considered by many to be the birthplace of modern astronomy. To celebrate, we're taking a look back on how the famous site became the epicenter of astronomical research, timekeeping and navigation, while highlighting how its purpose has evolved over time. The Royal Observatory's story began in 1675, when King Charles II of England decided that a purpose-built scientific institution was needed to solve a centuries old question - how can sailors navigate safely at sea? In the 1600s, seafaring was the only way for nations to communicate and assert influence over one another, and so finding an answer to the question was vital for everything from trade, to diplomacy, exploration and warfare. Sailors and astronomers had long since figured out how to establish their latitude at sea, but despite centuries of seafaring, we had yet to find a system for determining longitude. The newly minted Royal Observatory's main purpose was to find a way to accurately and consistently measure a sailor's longitude, which in turn would allow a ship's captain to navigate the vast oceans separating the continents. To that end, King Charles II appointed John Flamsteed as his 'Astronomical Observator' - later to be known as 'Astronomer Royal' - and tasked architect Christopher Wren to design the initial structure that the institution we see today grew up around. Generations of astronomers, scientists and horologists bent their expertise to solving the riddle, but it would be many decades before the Royal Observatory's founding mission was completed. Since its inception, astronomers had busied themselves tracking the apparent movements of the stars, moon and planets relative to an imaginary line running north to south through the observatory, known as a 'meridian'. These observations led to the creation of the first Nautical Almanac - a collection of tables that predicted the position of the moon and stars throughout the year - along with a handbook explaining how to mathematically determine longitude at sea, according to the Royal Observatory Greenwich website. By the year 1770, the English horologist John Harrison had also developed a complex timepiece that, unlike the pendulum-based clocks at the time, worked aboard a moving ship, giving sailors two ways to determine longitude! By the 1880s two-thirds of the world's ships were navigating with maps that used the Greenwich meridian as a reference line. As such, when a conference was held in 1884 to decide the world's first global, or 'Prime Meridian', Greenwich was the obvious, if not uncontested choice. The invention of railway travel also necessitated the establishment of a unified time zone, which was provided by the Royal Observatory and adopted by the railway companies. This new 'Greenwich Mean Time' (GMT) quickly spread and was adopted during the 1884 Meridian Conference as the new global time zone system, making the observatory the global reference center for time, navigation and astronomy. As centuries passed, generations of Astronomers Royal came and went, each leaving their own scientific achievements and personal marks on the historic site, which grew larger as new facilities and buildings sprung up around the original Wren-designed Flamsteed House. With the quest for longitude over, the observatory explored other avenues of astronomy, such as tracking Earth's magnetic field, viewing planetary transits and characterizing binary star systems. This was done with the aid of powerful new equipment, such as the Great Equatorial Telescope - a 28-feet-long (8.5 metres) refracting telescope that boasted a 28-inch aperture, which had to be housed in a vast circular shell known as the 'Onion Dome' when installed in 1893. The observatory's practices and functions were also heavily influenced by cultural and technological paradigm shifts - and some personal grudges - that were taking root in the wider world beyond. For example, the 1890s saw the Royal Observatory hire women for the first time, who worked for a pitiful wage as 'computers' to examine and refine observational data. Among their ranks was the famous science communicator and astronomer Annie Maunder, who advanced the scientific community's understanding of our parent star by observing the shifting sizes and positions of sunspots. Sadly, social convention dictated that Maunder resign her position upon marrying her husband and colleague Edward Walter Maunder in 1895. However, the couple would go on to continue their work away from the observatory, writing books and chartering expeditions to capture images of the sun's atmosphere during solar eclipse events. The Maunders also created the famous 'butterfly diagram', which used over a decade of observational data to visualize the 'flapping' butterfly-wing-like disposition of sunspots that occurs as the sun progresses through its 11-year activity cycle. The Royal Observatory has also faced its share of conflict, intrigue and danger since its inception. Vitriolic rivalries have blossomed between its astronomers and prominent scientific figures. John Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal, struck up a strong rivalry with Sir Isaac Newton, who hoped to use Flamsteed's star charts to refine his theories. Flamsteed had refused to release his star charts until he was certain the information within was correct, which led a frustrated Newton to publish an imperfect version of the work without the Astronomer Royal's permission. The site itself has also weathered physical threats, including an attempted anarchist bomb attack in 1894. World War 2 also saw a V1 flying bomb detonate nearby, shredding entire sections of the famous 'Onion Dome'. Thankfully, the telescope itself had been deconstructed and moved away from the observatory to safeguard it from the perils of war. In the wake of the second World War, the relentless creep of light pollution, smog from nearby London and the vibrations and magnetic interference from railway lines had rendered Greenwich an unfeasible location for delicate astronomical observation. In 1948, the telescopes and astronomers of Greenwich - including the vast bulk of the Great Equatorial Telescope - began relocating to the village of Herstmonceux some 60 miles from where Flamsteed had set the foundation stone for the first Royal Observatory in 1675. The Great Equatorial Telescope would eventually return to the Royal Observatory Greenwich in 1971, where it remains to this day. In the modern era, the Royal Observatory Greenwich serves as an invaluable historical site that serves as both a museum and a venue for science communication geared towards engaging and inspiring the next generation of astronomers. Visitors are free to follow in the footsteps of the Astronomers Royal and tread the same Wren-designed rooms that were paced by the likes of Sir Isaac Newton. It represents a potent mixture of the old and the new, featuring the only planetarium show in London alongside the historic Prime Meridian and detailed replicas of the timepieces used to ensure safe navigation by sea. "Founded in 1675, the Observatory was established to aid navigation through astronomical observations and timekeeping, beginning with John Flamsteed's meticulous project to catalogue 3,000 stars," said Royal Observatory Greenwich History of Science assistant curator Daisy Chamberlain to "Since then, the work of the Observatory expanded to include studies of magnetic variation, meteorology, and chronometer testing for the Navy." "Today, we share the wonders of time and space with our visitors through a number of fascinating permanent galleries, talks, tours, and heritage activities." RELATED STORIES — Preserving astronomy history: The fight is on to save iconic Royal Greenwich Observatory site — Royal Observatory: Where East Meets West — Stunning image of Andromeda galaxy takes top astronomy photography prize of 2023 (gallery) On clear nights you can still find astronomers plying their trade at the historic site, using the Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope — consisting of a vast Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope alongside a smaller refractor — to capture transit data, alongside stunning views of the cosmos. "The Annie Maunder Astrographic Telescope has given us the privilege of keeping practical astronomy alive and well at the observatory, using modern technology that our predecessors in previous centuries could only dream of," explained Jake Foster, an astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich to "With astrophotography and livestreams of astronomical events, we aim to bring the sights of the Universe down to Earth for all to enjoy." "Even under the modern-day light-polluted skies of London, there's so much to see! We hope that the Royal Observatory astronomers of days gone by would approve of our efforts." Be sure to check out the Royal Observatory Greenwich website to stay up to date with talks, tours and events to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the historic site.
Times
22-05-2025
- Times
The Barbican has never been fit for purpose — it's time to move on
Doubtless the hacks and gossips of 17th-century London laughed mockingly every time Christopher Wren announced another delay to the rebuilding of St Paul's Cathedral. But at least it was finished. I can't muster such optimism about some heritage projects that I was reporting on in my first years in journalism, yet which seem no nearer completion now. One is the proposal to dig a road tunnel under the Stonehenge site. It's as if we've been watching the same tedious debate on a time loop for 30 years. Recent developments? The tunnel was approved by the government (again) in 2023 and scrapped (again) in 2024. So I guess this year it's back to approval. Another never-ending saga, in the news this week? It's the project to
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The bombed London church that was reborn in the USA
As Londoners celebrated VE Day nearly 80 years ago much of the city in which they lived lay in ruins, not least the historic places of worship built by Sir Christopher Wren in the late 1600s in the aftermath of the Great Fire of London. While some would be repaired or rebuilt, others remained as shells, transformed into small public parks surrounded by a single wall or tower. However, one had a very different ending, being moved brick by charred brick more than 4,000 miles away and rebuilt at a college in the US Midwest. Why did St Mary Aldermanbury end up across the pond and what is it used for now? While St Mary Aldermanbury may have been destroyed in the Blitz, it wasn't the first time disaster had struck. Having been founded around the start of the 12th Century, the original medieval church was destroyed in the Great Fire in 1666, then became one of the 52 sites, including St Paul's Cathedral, rebuilt by Wren. On 29 December 1940, St Mary Aldermanbury and seven other City churches were badly damaged during a particularly devastating night of the Blitz as waves of Luftwaffe planes dropped bombs over London in what some coined as "the Second Great Fire". With limited finances available in post-war Britain to do anything with it, the church remained a charred husk for two decades - until an unusual proposal arrived from Missouri. "It really dates back to the end of the war on VE Day, when Sir Winston Churchill gave his famous speech on the balcony saying 'this is your victory' to the British people," explains Timothy Riley, director and chief curator of America's National Churchill Museum. "It was a triumphant moment for all at the end of the war. But not long after there was a general election and Churchill's party lost." In the wake of that defeat, Britain's wartime leader received a letter from Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, inviting him to give a speech, which included a message from US President Harry Truman saying: "This is a wonderful school in my home state. If you come, I'll introduce you." "I'm convinced that letter would normally have been given to a secretary by Churchill with the instruction to politely decline or refuse," Mr Riley says. "However, when he saw this handwritten note... having just lost an election and knowing that he had more to say, he anxiously/eagerly accepted the invitation and made his way to Fulton to give the Iron Curtain speech." The famous address, delivered on 5 March 1946, spelt out the deepening tensions between the West and the Soviet Union, and called for a special relationship to be forged between the US and UK. Fifteen years on from the speech, and with Churchill now in his 80s, thoughts turned to how the college could commemorate it. "Someone suggested a garden, someone suggested a statue, a plaque, and then the president of the college Robert Davidson said: 'Why don't we bring a ruined Christopher Wren church that was bombed in the Blitz, left abandoned for nearly 20 years in the City of London and rebuild it in Fulton?'," says Mr Riley. "The reaction, of course, was bafflement; how could we do such a thing? But that's what happened in the 1960s." After the initial suggestion was made in spring 1961, efforts began in earnest to gain permission to relocate the building and raise the $1.5m (the equivalent of more than $16m or £12m today) needed to do so. Backing was gained from several influential sources. President John F Kennedy became the project's honorary chairman until he was assassinated in 1963, with his successor Lyndon B Johnson then taking on the role. Previous presidents Truman and Dwight Eisenhower also publicly supported the cause. Back in the UK, Churchill endorsed the scheme, writing in a letter that it was an "imaginative concept", and following extensive discussions both the City of London and Diocese of London approved the move. In 1965 what remained of the church was dismantled piece by piece, with each of the 7,000 stones cleaned and then numbered so they could be placed in the same formation in their new home. Weighing more than 600 tonnes in total, they were taken by ship to Virginia, before being transported by rail to Missouri where the tricky task of rebuilding a wrecked 300-year-old building began. The Times branded it "one of the most intricate jigsaw puzzles in the history of architecture" and the project's mason, Eris Lytle, later described how he had to learn skills once used by Renaissance craftsmen to complete the project. With the monument completed in 1969, a service was held on 7 May to rededicate the church, attended by dignitaries from both sides of the Atlantic - although not Churchill who had died in 1965. Today, St Mary Aldermanbury isn't an active church but forms part of America's National Churchill Museum, based on the Westminster College campus. Yet as Mr Riley points out, it does maintain at least one link to its previous life. The bridge that crossed an ocean "It's a popular destination wedding venue - and also where you don't have to have a passport to get married in a 'British' church." He says the building is "perhaps the top tourist attraction in the middle of Missouri", and while those living in the area generally know about its history, "we still have a lot of people saying: 'I had no idea, it's extraordinary.'" As for the church's original site, beside the Guildhall, today it is a small park tucked among towers and modern office blocks of the City of London. Benches, trees and plant life surround a few remaining stones, while a large granite slab marks where the altar once stood. The site was refurbished last year with some of the funding coming from the museum, which also recently completed restoration work at St Mary Aldermanbury. "We've invested nearly $6m (£4.5m) into the preservation of the church so that we continue to be good stewards, so that it'll thrive and inspire and inform generations to come," says Mr Riley. Reflecting on the relocation of a bombed church to another continent, he believes it has become much more than a memorial to Churchill's Iron Curtain speech. "It is, I think, an extraordinary symbol of the Anglo-American relationship... and a constant reminder of the bond that our two countries continue to share in our own histories." Listen to the best of BBC Radio London on Sounds and follow BBC London on Facebook, X and Instagram. Send your story ideas to Churchill's favourite spy: Aristocrat who risked her life in WW2 Family visit fire boat named after Blitz heroine 'Mum was embarrassed about her WW2 bravery medal' America's National Churchill Museum St Mary Aldermanbury Garden
