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Graffiti at Greenwich

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Despite the fact that parts of the Observatory are over 350 years old, there is little graffiti to be found upon its walls. In the 1950s and 60s when the building was adapted for museum purposes, some internal and external walls were removed, other external walls rebuilt in new materials and most of the internal surfaces re-plastered. What if any graffiti was lost in the process as at that time is unknown as the museum authorities, in common with the custodians of most historic sites, had little or no interest in properly documenting their graffiti. Even as late as 2025, no formal survey had been carried out at Greenwich, despite the fact that numerous highly significant changes were about to be made to the buildings as part of the Museum's 'First Light' project.

When it was a working observatory access to the site was strictly controlled and the public were rarely admitted. Generally speaking, just four groups of people had access:

  1. The Astronomers Royal and their families who all lived on site
  2. Employees of the Observatory
  3. Contractors carrying out maintenance or building work
  4. Official Visitors (whose visit would have been per-arranged)

Externally, historic graffiti has been identified in just three locations:

  1. The east wall of Flamsteed's Sextant House (which was later incorporated into the building housing Airy's Altazimuth Telescope)
  2. The east wall of the east wing of the South Building (formerly known as the New Physical Building and more recently as the Astronomy Centre
  3. The east and north walls of the Western Summerhouse

Of these, the first two were in discrete corners and largely out of view of prying eyes!