The Asylum of Greenwich Hospital. (From the Park)

Plate 160 from a series. This shows the Queen's House, as augmented by flanking wings and colonnades to the designs of Daniel Asher Alexander, c. 1807-11, for the Royal Naval Asylum (which was not in fact, as the title implies, combined with the Greenwich Hospital School until the 1820s). It does, however, show the wings (or at least the east wing) completely extended to the north, as today, rather than in its original form of a balanced 'hammer-head' on the 'handle' of the colonnades; as shown, for example, by Turner in 1809 in his 'London from Greenwich' (see PAH3270) and the related 'Liber Studiorum' print. The title of the print is incorrect: at this time the Royal Naval Asylum was independent of Greenwich Hospital, the former only coming under initial control of the latter in 1821 and formally merging with it in 1825 as the 'Upper and Lower Schools of the Royal Hospital'. The name was formally changed in September that year.

The boundary wall with the Park, the ha-ha ditch (implied by figures partly in it) on the viewer's side, the central gate, and the rising curve northward at each end round the wings are also well shown. These remain much the same today but minus the curved section of wall on the west (left) end, removed over a period when the buildings were later extended and the boundary finally modified in their 1930s conversion to house the National Maritime Museum. PAF7625 is another copy.

Object Details

ID: PAF7626
Collection: Fine art
Type: Print
Display location: Not on display
Creator: James Whittle & Richard Holmes Laurie
Places: Unlinked place
Date made: 1 June 1814
Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Admiralty Collection
Measurements: 294 mm x 445 mm; Mount: 406 mm x 557 mm