Royal Observatory Greenwich Greater London hotels:

The home of Greenwich Mean Time, where you can stand with a foot in both Western and Eastern hemispheres. Since 1833 its red timeball has fallen daily at exactly 1300 hours to enable ships to set their clocks accurately. Britain’s first telegraph cable linked it to a similar timeball in Walmer on the south-east coast for the benefit of shipping in the English Channel. In keeping with this naval tradition, a cannon is sounded daily on the deck of the Cutty Sark at 1300 hours. Since 1884, the world has set its clocks according to the time of day on the Meridian of Greenwich, longitude 0°--an imaginary line joining the North and South Poles through the dead centre of a specialised telescope installed at the Observatory in 1851. Today, the Observatory houses Britain’s largest refracting telescope. Following its complete renovation in 1993, you can see a unique collection of historic timepieces and navigational instruments which tell the story of time and astronomy and the origins of the Observatory itself; you can walk around Sir Christopher Wren’s Octagon Room and the apartments of the Astronomer Royal; and you can enjoy regular shows in the intimacy of the Observatory’s tiny Planetarium and visit one of the country’s few camera obscuras in the courtyard.