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格林威治镇 Greenwich, a Historic Town of England
2010-12-10
格林威治镇离我家不到12分钟的车程. 那是我经常光顾的小镇.
Greenwich is one of London's most beguiling spots, and the one place in southeast London that draws large numbers of visitors. In Tudor times, Greenwich boasted a royal palace and, in neighbouring Deptford, the royal naval dockyard. Both have long since disappeared, and in place of the palace stands one of the capital's finest architectural set pieces, the former Royal Naval College overlooking the Thames. To the west lies Greenwich town centre, while to the south you'll find Greenwich's two prime tourist sights, the National Maritime Museum and the Royal Observatory.
Greenwich town centre, laid out in the 1820s with Nash-style terraces, is nowadays plagued with heavy traffic. To escape the busy streets, head for the original covered section of Greenwich Market. There are stalls here from Thursday to Sunday, but the place is at its liveliest at the weekend, when the stalls spill out up the High Road, Stockwell Road and Royal Hill. The best sections are the indoor secondhand book markets, flanking the Central Market on Stockwell Road; the Antiques hall, further down on Greenwich High Road; and the flea market on Thames Street.
It's entirely appropriate that the one London building that makes the most of its riverbank location should be the Old Royal Naval College, Wren's beautifully symmetrical Baroque ensemble, initially built as a royal palace, but eventually converted into a hospital for disabled seamen. From 1873 until 1998 it was home to the Royal Naval College, but now house the University of Greenwich and the Trinity College of Music.
The main entrance to the excellent National Maritime Museum, which occupies the old Naval Asylum, is on Romney Road. From here, you enter the spectacular glass roofed central courtyard, which houses the museum's largest artefact's, among them the splendid 63-foot-long gilded Royal Barge, designed in Rococo style by William Kent for Prince Frederick, the much-unloved eldest son of George II.
Crowning the highest hill in Greenwich Park, behind the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory was established in 1675 by Charles II to house the first Astronomer Royal, John Flamsteed. Flamsteed's chief task was to study the night sky in order to discover an astronomical method of finding the longitude of a ship at sea, the lack of which was causing enormous problems for the emerging British Empire. Astrologers continued to work here at Greenwich until the postwar smog forced them to decamp to Herstmonceux Castle and the clearer skies of Sussex; the old observatory, meanwhile, is now a very popular museum.
Article ZT from ' The mini rough guide to London'
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