Greenwich Book

Greenwich was initially thought a poor choice for the millennium celebrations. Beyond the picturesque park, Observatory and Naval College, it is a sprawl of run-down estates. The transport links were ineffectual and the Dome site was a ghastly industrial wasteland, in a state of what Jennings calls "poisonous decay" thanks to chemical plants and gas works. Many considered Birmingham a better choice. What swung the decision was the weight of history. What could be a more appropriate place to mark the millenium than the very place where time itself is measured? Charles Jennings' Greenwich explores the history that culminated in the Dome--a story as curious and eclectic as the place itself. Somehow this obscure fishing village beyond city boundaries grew to become the centre of Britain's Navy, the birthplace of classical architecture and a Royal home. Greenwich Mean Time was declared in an 1880 Act of Parliament, having come into common use through railway timetable synchronisation. Before that, longitude, latitude and the positions of the stars were already been calculated at the Observatory. Jennings' previous portraits of Britain--the upper classes caricatured in People Like Us and Northern life explored in Up North--demonstrated his wry humour. But Greenwichis a very different, meandering history, which doesn't always capture the place and its people. The most fascinating material in the book is the working-class history and lurid folk law--wild beast shows, "tumbling" and intoxication at the Greenwich Fair; the highwaymen of Blackheath; notorious murderers--which could have filled an entire book in itself.--Sarah ChampionRead More