A top-10 UK visitor attraction, Royal Museums Greenwich is home to the Royal Observatory Greenwich, the iconic historic sailing ship Cutty Sark, the National Maritime Museum and the Queen’s House art gallery. All their attractions are located within easy walking distance of each other within a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Entrance Fees To Cutty Sark
Cutty Sark is a British clipper ship. Built on the River Leven, Dunbarton, Scotland in 1869 for the Jock Willis Shipping Line, she was one of the last tea clippers to be built and one of the fastest, coming at the end of a long period of design development, which halted as sailing ships gave way to steam propulsion.
The opening of the Suez Canal (also in 1869) meant that steamships now enjoyed a much shorter route to China, so Cutty Sark spent only a few years on the tea trade before turning to the trade in wool from Australia, where she held the record time to Britain for ten years.[5] Improvements in steam technology meant that gradually steamships also came to dominate the longer sailing route to Australia, and the ship was sold to the Portuguese company Ferreira and Co. in 1895 and renamed Ferreira. She continued as a cargo ship until purchased in 1922 by retired sea captain Wilfred Dowman, who used her as a training ship operating from Falmouth, Cornwall. After his death, Cutty Sark was transferred to the Thames Nautical Training College, Greenhithe in 1938 where she became an auxiliary cadet training ship alongside HMS Worcester. By 1954, she had ceased to be useful as a cadet ship and was transferred to permanent dry dock at Greenwich, London, for public display.
Cutty Sark is listed by National Historic Ships as part of the National Historic Fleet (the nautical equivalent of a Grade 1 Listed Building). She is one of only three remaining original composite construction (wooden hull on an iron frame) clipper ships from the nineteenth century in part or whole, the others being the City of Adelaide, which arrived in Port Adelaide, South Australia on 3 February 2014 for preservation, and the beached skeleton of Ambassador of 1869 near Punta Arenas, Chile.
Schedule 2024:
Open daily from 10.00hrs-17.00hrs (last entry at 16.15hrs).
Summer Time Schedule 2024:
29/06/24-31/08/24: Open from 10.00hrs-18.00hrs (last entry at 17.15hrs).
Please note: The attraction is closed on 24th – 26th December
Complimentary policy: Group bookings will be entitled to 1 leader FOC for every 15 paying visitors.
PLEASE NOTE: All bookings (FITs and groups) MUST be pre-booked and timed entry at all sites at least 3 days prior.
Groups of 15+ or more MUST be pre-booked and either a Morning (10.00-13.59 hrs) slot or an Afternoon (14.00-16.30 hrs) slot must be specified
