If you’re planning on visiting Greenwich for any reason whatsoever then take my advice and catch a boat from Westminster Bridge. Tube trains should be banned to Greenwich because you’re missing out on the best bit: the river ride. It takes about an hour to go from Big Ben to Greenwich pier, and when you disembark at the other end the Cutty Sark will be right in front of you.
When I was a kid this boat used to be beached inside a dry concrete dock by the water’s edge, and all the stale rainwater would collect in the corners with a dirty stew of sticks and polystyrene cups. Ah, nostalgia! But these days it appears to be floating on top of a big blue greenhouse of glass. It’s quite clever the way they’ve done it. Imagine a mound of glass with a boat dropped on top. It just sits on the surface like its sailing on the sea, and when you descend into the basement you can see it hanging in mid-air above you, like a giant chandelier. The only other place that you can view a boat from such a unique angle is on the bottom of the seabed.
As I’m sitting here waiting for the doors to open a party of fifty kids has turned up – noisy ones – and three teachers as well (even noisier than the kids) all marching around like stressed-out sergeant majors. They’re trying to marshal their adolescent army into a tidy line but not having much luck. It’s a very unfair fight because the only weapons the three teachers possess are raised voices and pointed fingers, whilst the fifty kids are armed with malfunctioning ears and deadly mocking laughter.
I wonder if they still have the plank onboard this boat? Are you even allowed to make criminals walk the plank these days? Probably not, but I never understood the point of it anyway. Why bother blindfolding them to make them walk on a bendy bit of wood? Why not just shoot them? Throw them over the side and let the sharks eat them. I would have made a great captain.
The cargo decks
Part of me would have quite liked being a sailor but then I have a stroll around the Cutty Sark and learn that life onboard wasn’t much fun. They’ve tried stacking up a few sacks and bags and crates of cargo to give you a taste of the cramped conditions, but most of the holds are empty today, decorated with flashing TV screens showing scenes of the sloshing sea. They’ve got a little sit down cinema that projects a very basic documentary onto the back of some old tea chests to tell you what it did and where it went.
The next deck includes a few interactive table tops and push-button models for the kids (not very exciting) and some scale models of the ship. They’ve also got a selection of original artefacts on show including a lifebelt, barometer and a bell, but not a lot else. The middle deck seems rather sparse and empty to me – they should have put some more cargo boxes in there.
The top deck and crew cabins
The top deck is easily the most interesting. What a beautiful deck. It’s all polished planks and coils of rope. Imagine what the masts must have looked like with their white sails billowing – what an amazing sight that must have been! Why don’t they put them back on again?
But how on earth did the sailors manage to climb to the top because they must be towering fifty feet at least. You would need balls of steel to even attempt it today, so imagine what it must have been like when the boat was rolling around on the South China seas.
You can have a nose around a couple of the crew cabins and see the bunkbeds where they slept. They’ve also got a beautiful saloon filled with warm wood and lamps of polished brass. It even has a cast iron fireplace in it. Did they not have health and safety laws in the 19th century? I don’t think I’d fancy lighting a fire on a wooden boat but that just shows you how lily-livered we’ve become these days, because the only time this boat ever caught fire was actually right here in Greenwich, on this very spot, when some hoodlums torched it in dry dock.
The end of the tour takes you down into the concrete pit underneath the ship. As you descend down the stairs you can see the whole thing suspended above you like a storm cloud in the sky. It is huge. If you stuck a pair of wings on it then it would look like a jumbo jet. It seems far too heavy to be hanging from the ceiling and it reminds me of that big Blue Whale they’ve got suspended from the roof at the Natural History Museum.
The final exhibit is a collection of colourful figureheads, but there’s not a lot else. Just a lot of nattering families and kids in the cafe.
If you enjoy this then try Golden Hinde (take a tube journey from Cutty Sark to London Bridge) and National Maritime Museum (you can walk it in 6 mins). Tourists usually spend a whole day in Greenwich visiting the Old Royal Naval College and Royal Observatory & Planetarium. The best way to get there is via a City Cruise from Westminster. If you’ve got time for a day trip, then I definitely recommend Chatham Dockyard and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon
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Your comments and questions
Col Hi. How far is it from Cutty Sark station to Cutty Sark ship?
Craig It's only a two-minute walk, you just go around the corner and head for the river. You can't miss it
WH Do they ever let the boat into the river, and sail it down the river? like they do for the Golden Hinde?
Craig Hi WH. Not any more, no. It used to be berthed inside a dry-dock but now it's embedded into the actual roof of the museum, so it looks like its sailing days are over.
Paul Where can you park your car near the cutty sark?
Craig There's a car-park at the National Maritime Museum, which is only a few minutes walk. It's down the side of the museum in Park Row. There's another pay and display place in Greenwich Park
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