National Maritime Museum Complex

Separated by Romney Road from the Old Royal Naval College (q.v.), the National Maritime Museum and Queen's House are within landscaped grounds, which are largely set to lawns with wide pathways and mature trees including those planted along the north boundary. There were buildings here from early times, possibly a residence of Saxon Kings of Kent in the C12th and from 918 AD it may have been part of lands given to the Abbey of Ghent. In 1422 Henry V's brother, the Duke of Gloucester, became Regent after the death of the king, and here he built a riverside mansion, which he called Bella Court. When he was arrested for high treason in 1447, the new Queen Margaret of Anjou took over his house, and renamed it Placentia or the Palace of Pleasaunce, and it continued to be associated with royalty in the ensuing centuries. Henry VIII established his naval dockyards at Woolwich and nearby Deptford, and Elizabeth I used Placentia for festivities, including as the send-off for voyages of discovery by Francis Drake and others. Drake was knighted at Greenwich on his return from sailing round the world and here Elizabeth signed the orders launching the Fleet against the Spanish Armada. In 1616 James I commissioned Inigo Jones to design a new palace here for his wife Anne of Denmark, to whom he also gave the park that is now the public Greenwich Park (q.v.). The site of the new palace was that of an existing Lodge Gate in the wall running along the south side of the Deptford to Woolwich Road, and the villa initially had two ranges connected by a bridge across the road. Anne died before it was completed and the Palladian-style building now known as the Queen's House was completed in 1635 by which time Charles I had given Greenwich to his wife Henrietta-Maria, who also commissioned Sir William Boreman to supervise improvements to Greenwich Park.

During the Commonwealth the royal palace decayed and was used as a biscuit factory for troops; later Dutch prisoners were kept here, and the staterooms were used as stables for Cromwell's horses. At the Restoration Charles II demolished the remains of the old Tudor Palace and commissioned a new palace on the site, the King's House, which was begun in 1664 to designs of John Webb, but only one wing was completed by 1669. The Queen's House was enlarged and refurbished by John Webb who added bridges along the east and west fronts, and the house was later given to the Dowager Queen Henrietta. In 1688 the new monarchs William and Mary chose Hampton Court as their royal palace.

The building of a naval hospital (almshouse) for the relief and support of seamen and their dependants, which would complete the King's House at Greenwich, was the wish of Queen Mary, her decision the result of seeing wounded men returning from the naval battle of La Hogue in 1692. After her death William set about the project, in 1694 commissioning Sir Christopher Wren to undertake the designs. The Royal Hospital at Greenwich was to match the Royal Hospital Chelsea (q.v.) established in 1682. The first pensioners came to Greenwich in 1705 but the Royal Naval Hospital was eventually closed in 1869 and in 1873 the buildings were taken over for the Royal Naval College. The Royal Navy left Greenwich in December 1998 whereupon responsibility for the Old Royal Naval College passed to the Greenwich Foundation.

The Queen's House to the south, now the National Maritime Museum Complex, had become the house of the Ranger of Greenwich Park in 1690. When Lord Romney was Ranger he diverted the old Deptford to Woolwich Road, creating Romney Road that exists today. In 1807-1816 the Queen's House was extended by Daniel Asher Alexander, with east and west wings connected by open colonnades when the Royal Hospital School occupied the building and a school for the children of naval men moved here to join the existing school for pensioners' children. A gymnasium and assembly hall were added c.1874. The grounds were used by the school, for example for cricket matches. The school moved out in 1933 and the buildings were then restored by the Office of Works for the National Maritime Museum, established by Act of Parliament in 1934.

The new Museum was opened to the public in 1937 by King George VI. In 1999 the new Neptune Court was completed. The site is within Greenwich Maritime World Heritage Site, designated in 1997.