ROYAL OBSERVATORY SHIFTED

Evening Star, Issue 25768, 15 April 1946, Page 6

ROYAL OBSERVATORY SHIFTED

NOW THIRTY MILES EAST LONDON, April 13. Smoke, fog, and electric lighting have led the Admiralty to shift the (Royal Observatory 30 miles east of the Prime Meridan into the ancient Hurstmonceaux Castle in Sussex. Neither the time nor the longitude standards is changed by the move, but navigators must find a new term for the traditional definition of the zero longitude as that which passed through .the transit telescope at the Royal Observatory. The change was decided on after many years' search for a site where the astronomers would be able to scan the sky without the hindrances of London's night lighting and smoke-filled atmosphere. Hurstmonceaux, which is nine miles east of Hailsham, was built by Henry Vl.'s treasurer, Sir Roger de Finennes, in 1446. The observatory thus moves from one historic building to another, as Greenwich was built in the reign of Charles 11., who gave the land and ordered Christopher Wren to draw up the plans. He provided £SOO from the sale of old gunpowder to defray the cost.