Old Royal Naval College
A riverside stage set for British history: Tudor palace, charitable hospital, elite naval academy, and today one of Europe’s finest Baroque ensembles. Wren and Hawksmoor’s symmetry frames two quiet showstoppers—the Chapel and the Painted Hall—while the Thames and Greenwich Park do the rest. Give the Painted Hall time: Thornhill’s ceiling reads like a graphic novel of sea power and science, painted over two decades. Step across to the chapel to reset your eyes—pale, musical, and unexpectedly intimate. If you’re a film fan, the site doubles convincingly for anywhere from revolutionary Paris to Regency London; maps in the visitor centre mark the exact camera spots. Plan 60–90 minutes for the core interiors, longer if you add the riverside walk or a film-location tour.
Opening Hours
What's not to miss inside?
Painted Hall
Britain’s grandest Baroque interiorJames Thornhill spent 19 years (1707–1726) painting a ceiling-and-wall epic celebrating navigation, monarchy, and scientific discovery—think allegory meets star chart.
📍 King William Court (ticketed entry)
Chapel of St Peter & St Paul
A serene Neoclassical counterpointRebuilt after an 18th-century fire, the chapel’s light interior blends crisp columns, an exquisite Coade-stone pulpit and a rippling anchor-motif ceiling for seafarers’ prayers.
📍 Queen Mary Court
River Court & Domes
Wren’s axial planning with a viewTwo domes open a view corridor from the river to the Queen’s House and Observatory—the campus is basically a ceremonial telescope pointed at time.
📍 Along the Thames frontage
Skittle Alley
Victorian leisure beneath Baroque grandeurHidden below the chapel is a 19th-century skittle alley used by pensioners of the Royal Hospital for Seamen—conviviality under the stones.
📍 Undercroft, by tour only
Film & TV Spots
A chameleon for cinemaFrom ‘Les Misérables’ barricades to ‘Bridgerton’ balls and Marvel’s Asgard, the courtyards shape-shift with astonishing ease.
📍 Site-wide (check daily map)
Inspire your Friends
- Before the Baroque, this was the Tudor Palace of Placentia—birthplace of Henry VIII (1491) and Elizabeth I (1533).
- Admiral Nelson lay in state in the Painted Hall for three days in January 1806—over 30,000 mourners filed past.
- Thornhill was paid by the square yard for the Painted Hall and later knighted—the first British-born artist to receive a knighthood (1720).
- Those crisp sculptural details in the chapel? Many are Coade stone—a near-mythical, frost-proof ‘artificial stone’ perfected in Georgian London.
- There really are beehives on site; Greenwich honey from the Naval College’s gardens turns up seasonally in the shop.
