People around the world know Greenwich for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian (0° longitude) and Greenwich Mean Time. It is also renowned for possessing some of the finest architecture in Britain. 

Its centre, Maritime Greenwich, comprises the outstanding historic buildings that are so popular with visitors and residents alike, including the National Maritime Museum, Royal Observatory and the Old Royal Naval College. Widely recognised as being the finest collection of Baroque buildings in northern Europe, they are collectively classed by UNESCO a World Heritage Site for posessing the “finest and most dramatically sited architectural and landscape ensemble in the British Isles”. 

A famous canvas by Canaletto, painted in 1752, shows Greenwich Park and Sir Christopher Wren’s Old Royal Naval College. Wren proclaimed – rather immodestly, perhaps – that this was ‘the finest view in Europe’. Fortunately this beautiful landscape has changed very little from those times. 

However, other local panoramas have changed out of all recognition: most notable of these is of course Canary Wharf, a gleaming metropolis springing out of derelict land in little more than two decades. 

The reclamation of the near-derelict Greenwich Peninsular as a site for the Millennium Dome, now the O2 Arena, and creation of a new community, Greenwich Millennium Village, with its very own ecology park is another monumental change to the Greenwich landscape in recent years. 

Greenwich Borough contains a very varied spread of architecture. It’s attractive centre, dominated by the imposing St Alfege Church designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor (who trained under Wren, working with him on the stunning Royal Naval College) includes many Georgian and Victorian houses. 

The attractive streets around Hyde Vale, Crooms Hill and Royal Hill are especially sought after, while the Ashburnham triangle conservation area of nine streets of stuccoed terraced houses dating from the 1820s onwards with later cul-de-sacs, is also very popular. 

Greenwich even has a couple of castles. One, the 18-metre high triangular folly Severndroog Castle at Castlewood off Shooters Hill, was built in 1784 by the wife of Sir William James, in memory of his capture of Severndroog fortress on the Malabar Coast. Recently opening to the public, it boasts great views. 

At the top of Maze Hill is another folly, Vanbrugh Castle, built by Sir John Vanbrugh, architect and dramatist. He also suceeded Sir Christopher Wren as Surveyor to the Royal Naval Hospital in 1719. Vanbrugh lived in the castle from 1719 to 1726 and now it has been split into a number of private residences