Old Royal Naval College

Notice how the two domes stand apart, leaving a wide gap down the middle. That gap is the whole point. When Christopher Wren designed a hospital here for old and injured sailors in the 1690s, Queen Mary II insisted that the view between the Queen's House and the river must not be blocked. So Wren split his building in two, and you can still look straight through from the water to the small white house at the foot of the park. Before the hospital, this was the site of Greenwich Palace, where Henry VIII was born, and after him his daughters Mary I and Elizabeth I. Under the western dome, the one nearest the Cutty Sark, is the Painted Hall. James Thornhill spent nineteen years painting it, from 1707 to 1726, much of the time on his back on the scaffolding with one arm raised, and his posture was never the same again. He was paid by the square yard, three pounds for the ceiling and one pound for the walls. The result was judged too grand for everyday meals, and the pensioners ate in the rooms below instead. In January 1806 Admiral Nelson's body lay in state in the hall for three days, and thirty thousand people came to pay their respects.