Our next call was at Greenwich.
The Naval College was built around 1700 as a home for retired and destitute seaman from the navy. However despite its grand surroundings life was pretty rough and ready in the college. It also included a specialist hospital for treating sick or injured seaman. The buildings were designed by sir Christopher Wren but he had to change his design to allow for there to be a river view from the Queens house in the adjacent palace of Greenwich.
The seaman’s home closed in 1869 and the buildings passed to the Royal Navy to use as a training college. They occupied the site until 1998, when it passed to a trust charged with preserving the buildings. The current tenants of the site are the University of Greenwich and Trinity College of Music. The famous painted hall and the chapel are open to the public along with the Greenwich heritage centre.
The Trafalgar Tavern which sits next to the Naval College was built in 1837 and quickly became popular with the literary set of the day including Wilkie Collins, William Thackery and Charles Dickens, who included it as the location of a wedding breakfast in ‘Our mutual friend’. In the 19th century it became an institute for merchant seaman and then a working men’s club. It 1965 it was redeveloped and restored to its original Victorian décor and re-opened as a public house and restaurant
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