← All articles · United Kingdom · 25 June 2011

Greenwich, United Kingdom: The Old Royal Naval College campus, coursework and a late bowling night

The oldest photos on this whole site: our University of Greenwich years, the chapel and Painted Hall at Christmas 2004, then coursework, cables and bowling.

Everything else on this site happened later. These are the oldest photos we have, from our University of Greenwich years, when the campus was the Old Royal Naval College and a night out finished whenever the bowling alley did. One warning before you scroll: these came off cameras from 2004 onwards, date stamp burned into the corner and all, and they look every bit their age. We're keeping them exactly as they are.

The campus you can't quite believe you study in, 2004

Most universities give you a car park and a lecture block. Greenwich handed us Christopher Wren's Old Royal Naval College, a pair of domes on the Thames, and a lawn wide enough to lose people on.

A woman standing on the wide green lawn between the two domed baroque blocks of the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, with the white Queen's House framed in the gap beyond — May 2004, standing in the gap between the two domes with the Queen's House lined up dead centre behind. The whole site is built around that one view.

That December the family came over for Christmas in London, so of course we walked them round the campus. It's the only student campus we know of where the tour includes a painted ceiling.

The long aisle of the Old Royal Naval College chapel in Greenwich, gilded coffered ceiling above, a tall altarpiece painting behind the altar and a lit Christmas tree to the left — December 2004 in the chapel: patterned floor running the whole length of the aisle, an altarpiece the size of a house, and one Christmas tree quietly holding its own.

Three visitors sitting on chairs in the middle of the Painted Hall at Greenwich, the vast baroque wall painting and candelabra behind them and decorated Christmas trees on both sides — Family in for Christmas 2004, parked on three chairs in the Painted Hall while the ceiling did the talking. Nobody ever leaves that room quickly.

Up the hill from all of that is the reason the world sets its clocks by this postcode.

The Shepherd Gate 24 hour galvano-magnetic clock mounted on the brick wall at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, with the brass public standards of length for the British yard, two feet and one foot fixed below it — The Shepherd Gate clock on the Observatory wall, running on 24 hours instead of 12, with the public standards of length bolted underneath. If your ruler was wrong, this was where you came to find out.

Coursework, cables and one very late bowling night, 2005 to 2007

Dileep asleep face down on a keyboard at a desk, one hand still on the mouse, two coffee mugs beside him and a monitor showing an unfinished game of chess — April 2005, two mugs of coffee in and beaten by a game of chess. This is the honest version of student life, and the chess board is still waiting for a move.

Inga sitting on a bed with a laptop on her knees, printed coursework pages spread around her and a wall of anime posters including Akira and 3x3 Eyes behind her — February 2006: coursework spread across the bed, laptop on the knees, and a wall of anime posters supervising. Akira and 3x3 Eyes took the job seriously.

Dileep in a blue polo shirt and lanyard reaching into a dense bundle of patch cables on an open server rack in a machine room — Two days later, twenty to nine in the evening, Dileep elbow deep in patch cables. Somewhere inside that bundle there was a working network.

Five friends posing and cheering around a small table of drinks in the bar of a dimly lit bowling alley, a food and drink card standing on the table — June 2007, twenty to midnight, five of us and one small table in the bowling alley bar. Nobody remembers the scores. Everybody remembers the night.

Down the river in Kent, June 2011

One later frame belongs with these, because the university never stayed inside one postcode.

Aerial view over the rooftops of Chatham in Kent from the Great Lines, the old town hall with its green copper dome and clock tower in the centre, car parks and building works around it — Chatham from the Great Lines, June 2011: the old town hall keeping its green dome above the car parks. The university's other home, the Medway campus, sits down on the waterfront a little past this view.

Graduation day itself, July 2007 under the colonnades of the Old Royal Naval College, is filed with the rest of our earliest capital photos over on London, 2005 to 2007. Everything on this blog since then, every airport and every long bus, started from these rooms.