Date: Tuesday 18 March 2025 (bookings will close on Tue 4 Mar at 9am)
Time:  10.30 am
Who can attend: Society members and their guests
Cost: £60
Members’ area (LMS): Click here to book
Dress code: Warm and with comfortable shoes!
Venue: Greenwich Museums
Organiser:  alison.catherine872@gmail.com or vanessa.jenkins@talktalk.net

The number of places is limited to 20 and will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis. Please feel free to invite one or more guests.

The morning will consist of three linked mini-tours on the site of the Old Royal Naval College, being conducted into the Painted Hall, followed by crossing to the Queen’s House. The event will end with lunch at 12.30 in a nearby Greenwich pub, for a two course meal, with wine (menus to be circulated to participants nearer the time).

Meeting at 10.30 at the Cutty Sark, our guide (from the Greenwich Tour Guide Association GTGA) will lead the way.  The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage site. Formerly it has been a royal palace and the Royal Navy‘s Greenwich Hospital.  Designed by Christopher Wren, it was built between 1696 and 1712. The hospital closed in 1869 but between 1873 and 1998 the buildings were used as a training establishment for the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.  The Painted Hall is part of the Old Royal Naval College and was ambitiously restored between 2014 and 2019, when the magnificent venue was reopened. Thornhill’s painted ceiling masterpiece will be a treat to behold.  The third component of the tour, the Queens House, is an impressively grand, yet simple white villa, with an uninterrupted view of the Thames, built for Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I, and completed in the 1630s.  It was designed to be a place of pleasure for court favourites, and haven for artists and craftsmen. Its grace and charm have survived perfectly intact since the 17th century. By 12.30 we will be ready for the short stroll to the Plume of Feathers for our lunch.

Refunds, minus a £5 admin fee (per ticket), will be offered, upon request, to anyone cancelling for any reason up to six working days before an event.  After this time, no refunds are available.The Livery Committee is the Society’s members’ social committee and is separate from the main Society Programme.  It operates outside of the governance of the Society, and uses a money-pooling system for all of its events.  Net receipts collected by the Society on their behalf are passed to the Livery Committee.