Talk:Old Royal Naval College

New site created

I have created this new wike page for the Old Royal Naval College as that is an existing physical location in the World Heritage site. It is surely not acceptable that the seach engine did not find the ORNC directly and that a historical function of the buildings was confuse with it: saying erroneously that the RNC is now called the ORNC. The RNC doesn't exist. It was housed in the grounds of what was once the Greenwich Hospital. This page now is devoted to the Old Royal Naval College as a NAMED location within the World Hiritage site. It talks about its modern function. The page has a 'see also' to the history of the buildings in Greenwich Hospital (London). LezJ (talk) 10:13, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, Old Royal Naval College and Greenwich Hospital (London) are the same historical site. The "named world heritage site" is merely another phase in the same buildings history of use, since its foundation as the Greenwich Royal Naval Hospital. Ultimately, the two articles should be merged and this marked as a redirect. If that is done correctly - and the articles are put into 'wikistyle' - then search engines will find the article correctly. HTH Kbthompson (talk) 14:25, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the person below [now above] and have done the textual part of this but don't know if I have done the technical things mentioned. It is really encouraging to see that the important point made by others before is understood and now acted upon. This is a part of the WHS and deserves the splendid photo and introuction given here now.--LezJ (talk) 14:46, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

[Order corrected] I think you misunderstand. In wikipedia redirects are used to ensure that articles with more than one common name are directed to the correct article. By editing the content of the Greenwich Hospital article into this one, you are merely replacing the history of contributions to that article with your own editing history here. There should be one article, it should be there; and this should be a redirect to that article. Kbthompson (talk) 15:10, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for this above. I have checked the links and everything seems to work correctly. Perhaps I should explain what the situation was. There was no wiki page for the ORNC. There was one for RNC and one for Greenwich Hospital that had the photos and the history. The RNC page said that the site of RNC started out as GH and was now known as ORNC. There was also sees to the Greenwich Visitors Centre (which is on the site of ORNC but didn't mention that. The pages of both RNC and GH were thin to say the least. Neither dealt adequately with the modern site or the history of their use of it. So, I brought into existance this page about the ORNC and give the history of the site's uses (expanding them). So any one interested in GH, or RNC, or ORNC would find what they wanted and in context. ORNC is an important national asset and yet could not easily be found. A search didn't find it. You were give a page where you could select it. That seemed to be wrong. Now one can find ORNC on a search and if one is interested in GH or RNC one is redirected to ORN. It is likely that more people will find out about GH and RNC because of this new page. It is quite interesting and certainly informative. LezJ (talk) 09:20, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

As I said, one of my concerns with all this 'cutting and pasting' is that the history of others' contributions to the article are being lost. That said, I'm not going to enter an edit war over the content and naming. I'll review it when you're done. One of the problems is that it wasn't built as the old anything; it was built as the Greenwich Hospital - and as such it is Wren's finest - and final - work; completed by Hawksmoor. A good example (say) is Old Spitalfields Market - it was actually built in the 1800s to replace 'Old Spitalfields' and then it was really quite new. The same applies to this building - a better name is the 'Royal Naval Hospital Greenwich' - which it was called up to when someone decided to rename the building complex to indicate its heritage status. The questions of accessing the right article from searches is done by following the manual of style in introducing the phases in the building's history through the use of redirects and lead content. Then having a section in the article on each phase of the building's development and use. It requires more thought, I think - but you have recognised that there is a problem - and 'been bold'! I'm looking more strategically and thinking how this can be brought up to featured article status - which is really what the building deserves. HTH Kbthompson (talk) 10:23, 11 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I see your point as no doubt you can see my lack of experience and knowledge of Wikipedia. I think you are right about the editing history. It is an important point. I don't know what an editing war is but I can guess. Nothing I have done is intended to be unhelpful or warlike and I will refrain from dealing with this matter again. LezJ (talk) 09:50, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

No, I am assuming 'good faith' on your part - and much of what you're doing is a tremendous improvement to the article. You do need to tone down the 'gushiness' of a tourist guide, make the text more encyclopaedic - and avoid too many 'peacock' words. You realise that phrases like “outstanding universal value” need to be in quotes - but each also needs a citation to where the quote comes from.

The intention is to improve the article, not to stop you from doing some very good work. Generally, on wikipedia, things proceed through consensus and collaboration. A part of that process is attempting to aim for some standards - look at the manual of style for some guidelines; and perhaps see how others have put together featured articles that work - you can find some from the London Portal (linked from the banner). HTH Kbthompson (talk) 10:09, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Reference

This is probably the best reference for unesco. I cannot get into the text of the pages and don't know if this is working either. My last try.

http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/795 —Preceding unsigned comment added by LezJ (talk • contribs) 10:17, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Article name

Would this article not be better called "Royal Naval College, Greenwich", to distinguish from RNC Dartmouth? The article is largely about the buildings, but should the Naval Hospital not have a separate article, dealing with the use of the buildings for that? Peterkingiron (talk) 21:12, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Article Photo

I'm not sure about how the first photo stretches horizontally across the page. It feels like it violates some point in the Wikipedia styleguide but I can't think how it could be rectified. Does anyone have any thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jamgoodman (talk • contribs) 00:52, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Hi - Agreed. I have moved the panorama down the page to make it less obtrusive. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 09:24, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm interested to know you created this article Dormskirk, having trained at what was then called the Royal Naval College Greenwich, in 1970, myself. Just being there was inspirational and eating all our meals in the Painted Hall was something we could never really believe was 'actually' happening. It was very special. I doubt if it is appropriate for Wikipedia, but I can assure you that Admiral Byng's ghost haunts the building! Well, the ghost is certainly 'reputed' to be his! I had a close encounter with it...there's a bit about it on Google https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=does+the+ghost+of+admiral+byng+haunt+the+royal+naval+college+greenwich It's the 50th anniversary of my class next year and I rather think we'll be having a get-together! I passed out 2nd by the way, so I just missed out on the Canaletto! Best wishes. Arbil44 (talk) 00:54, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Hi - I did not actually create the article but I have done quite a lot of work on it. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 07:52, 11 November 2019 (UTC)

Change the whole article about the ORNC as information is out of date; it should be replaced with new and better content ORNC-W2020 (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

I am starting with the first step - to propose a change of the content of this article:

1. Propose a specific change on a talk page. Don't add an edit request template yet.

Please let me know if i can insert the new content here of the new article with links of several words to Wikipedia pages. Can i/we start with two paragraphs. please see them below:

Old Royal Naval College

Overview

The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site [[1]] in Greenwich[[2]], London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO)[[3]] as being of ‘outstanding universal value’. Its buildings have been referred to as ‘among the most outstanding group of Baroque buildings in England.’https://ornc.org/ 

Today, the Old Royal Naval College is a diverse, cultural space at the heart of Royal Greenwich, and one of London’s most popular venues and visitor attractions; it encompasses 17 acres of public space attracting over 1.2 million visitors every year.

The classical buildings that adorn the site were built as the Royal Hospital for Seamen between 1696 and 1751. Designed by England’s greatest architects, including Sir Christopher Wren and Nicholas Hawksmoor, the buildings are considered amongst the finest in Europe, featuring the sumptuous Painted Hall and the neo-classical Chapel. Prior to that the site was home to the celebrated Greenwich Palace, the favoured Royal residence of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. A small part of the excavated palace, revealed during recent conservation works, can be viewed in the King William Undercroft. The rich maritime history of the site continued after the departure of the Royal Hospital in the 1860s.

From 1873 to 1998 the buildings housed the Royal Naval College, one of the world's foremost naval training establishments. An independent charity, the Greenwich Foundation for the Old Royal Naval College, was established in 1997 to conserve the magnificent Baroque buildings and grounds for present and future generations and to provide opportunities for wide and diverse audiences to enjoy and share their significance.

Today these historic London landmark’s buildings and grounds are open to the public. The Painted Hall, built as a ceremonial dining room quickly became a major tourist attraction, has the greatest grand-scale decorative painting in England and has been described as ‘Britain’s Sistine Chapel’. The abundant and complex painting scheme covers some 4,000 square metres and was designed and executed by Sir James Thornhill between 1707 and 1726. The Painted Hall was the subject of an extensive National Lottery Funded conservation project, completed in 2019. The Chapel of St Peter and St Paul is a neo-classical masterpiece by James ‘Athenian’ Stuart. Featuring a Samuel Green organ and an altarpiece painted by Benjamin West, it is one of the country’s finest 18th-century interiors.

Origins of the site

Main article: Palace of Placentia

A royal manor had existed at Greenwich for centuries before it was given to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester by his brother, Henry V[[4]] in 1426. Duke Humphrey built a mansion called Bella Court on the site now occupied by the Old Royal Naval College and he was given permission to enclose 200 acres of land to the south of his new mansion to form a hunting park (now Greenwich Park). On Humphrey’s death in 1447, Bella Court was taken over by Margaret of Anjou[[5]], wife of Henry VI[[6]], and was renamed the Palace of Placentia[[7]].

From 1498 onwards the Palace of Placentia was transformed by Henry VII [8] into a magnificent new royal residence which became known as Greenwich Palace. The Palace was to play a major role in life of his son, Henry VIII[[9]]. Henry VIII was born here and it became one of his favourite palaces, with excellent hunting in the adjoining royal park. He spent lavishly on further enhancements, including the addition of a new stable block, tiltyard (for jousting) and armoury complex. Greenwich was comparable with Hampton Court for its apartments, gardens and open spaces. It was at Greenwich that Henry married his first wife, Catherine of Aragon[[10]], and where he had his second wife, Anne Boleyn[[11]], arrested for treason before she was taken to the Tower of London for trial and execution. It was at Greenwich too that Henry’s daughters, the future Queens Mary I[[12]] and Elizabeth I[[13]], were born, and where his son and successor Edward VI[[14]] died aged fifteen, after six years as King. And it was here that in 1585 Elizabeth I signed the death warrant of her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots [[15]](‘from Greenwich, in haste’).

Greenwich Palace fell into disrepair during the English Civil War, and was used as a biscuit factory before becoming a prisoner of war camp.

Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Charles II [[16]] dreamed of creating an English Versailles at Greenwich. Work began to demolish the old Greenwich Palace and to create a new palace to designs by John Webb. Part of what is now King Charles Court had been built when money for the project ran out and work stopped in 1672. ORNC-W2020 (talk) 19:59, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

 Not done this is entirely inappropriate and promotional in tone. You are not going to get HUGE walls of text changed in this manner, you would be better off with single sentence changes at a time. Theroadislong (talk) 20:08, 10 February 2021 (UTC)

Dear Theroadslong, thank you. i will speak to the Foundation and seek their advice. Best, Irina ORNC-W2020 (talk) 15:08, 12 February 2021 (UTC)

Featured picture scheduled for POTD

Hello! This is to let editors know that File:Old Royal Naval College 2017-08-06.jpg, a featured picture used in this article, has been selected as the English Wikipedia's picture of the day (POTD) for October 25, 2022. A preview of the POTD is displayed below and can be edited at Template:POTD/2022-10-25. For the greater benefit of readers, any potential improvements or maintenance that could benefit the quality of this article should be done before its scheduled appearance on the Main Page. If you have any concerns, please place a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day. Thank you! --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:39, 8 June 2022 (UTC)

The Old Royal Naval College is the architectural centrepiece of Maritime Greenwich, a World Heritage Site in Greenwich, London, described by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as the "finest and most dramatically sited architectural and landscape ensemble in the British Isles". The buildings were originally constructed to serve as the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, now generally known as Greenwich Hospital, which was chartered by King William III and Queen Mary II on 25 October 1694, designed by Christopher Wren, and built between 1696 and 1712. The hospital closed in 1869. Between 1873 and 1998 it housed the Royal Naval College, Greenwich. This panoramic photograph depicts the two buildings of the Old Royal Naval College viewed from across the River Thames, with the Queen's House visible in the background in between.

Photograph credit: Colin

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