In Conan Doyle's novel The Naval Treaty, Sherlock Holmes says of the newly built three storey-high Board Schools, 'Look at those big isolated clumps of buildings rising up like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea – lighthouses – beacons of the future.' Holmes would no longer recognise the skyline of London, seen from the top of Parliament Hill, where the once iconic view of St Paul's Cathedral has been ruined by the looming presence of the Shard, beacon to the power of Mammon.
When I travelled to Greenwich and changed trains onto the Docklands Light Railway, I could not have felt more lost if someone had told me I'd landed on the moon. The experience reminded me quite forcibly of T.S. Eliot's 'unreal city' in the Four Quartets. It was, therefore, reassuring to speak to two local women of my generation who told me that they can still shop at local street markets, and who seemed quite unfazed by the seismic changes their district has undergone in the past five years, with its mammoth glass towers and the overwhelming metallic sheen of the area.
It was a relief to step out of the train at Greenwich station and join the normal bustle of people going about their everyday lives. The historian David Starkey has written that, since the industrialisation of the riverbanks in the period between 1830-60, only at Greenwich can we still see 'something of the old Thames, with the grandest combination of water, landscape and architecture in England.' In 1884 Greenwich was proclaimed 'the prime meridian at zero degrees longitude' and can therefore be regarded as standing at the centre of the maritime world. Now a major tourist attraction, Greenwich is very busy, especially during the summer months, and it would take a visitor longer than the day I spent there to absorb the wealth of historical matter on view.
The Cutty Sark, an old tea clipper, has been imaginatively (but perhaps too beautifully) restored as an educational venue, after it was gutted by a disastrous fire. One is able to see how small and cramped the crew's bunks were in contrast to those of the Captain and the First Mate, but it's all very clean and bright, and one has to work hard to imagine the gales, the sea spray, the nausea and the stench that must have been endured by the crew of 30 men during the long voyages east, in the race to purchase tea. It is recorded that, on her outward journey to China, in 1872, the Cutty Sark carried a cargo which included iron, currants, liquorice, marmalade, hops and mead. In all, the Cutty Sark made eight major voyages. Her fastest journey to Shanghai took 89 days and the record journey home was a long 109 days.
Christopher Wren's Painted Hall is soon to undergo repainting and restoration work. This magnificent building was originally built as a dining hall for naval pensioners. After Lord Nelson died at the Battle of Trafalgar, his body was preserved in a barrel of brandy and transported back to Greenwich, where, for three days, he lay there in state. The nearby Maritime Museum pays due homage to Nelson whose image appears on teapots and mugs, on patch-boxes and, though I was sad not to have found any, probably also graces tea towels. The prize exhibit is a magnificent, slender golden ceremonial river barge, the 'Prince Frederick', which was built in 1736, and from which the prince greeted his bride, the Princess Augusta of Saxe-Gotha. This is on loan from the Queen, who, perhaps wisely, chose not to grace it during the recent Jubilee celebrations.
The museum is child-friendly with plenty of interactive material to keep busy fingers occupied with various tasks and researches, and one is able to converse with a 'character from the past', an excellent scheme whereby actors find employment and are able to hone their ad-libbing skills as they 'bring history to life'.
Not all of Greenwich history concerns the distant past. The University of Greenwich and the Trinity College of Music are based on the site of the old Royal Naval College. It is sobering to be reminded that at the time of her son Stephen's murder in south London, Doreen Lawrence was a student of art at Greenwich University, which has named its Art Gallery in memory of the teenager.
Cicely Herbert is one of the trio who founded and run Poems on the Underground.