GREENWICH, a south-eastern metropolitan borough of London, England, bounded N. by the river Thames, E. by Woolwich, S. by Lewisham and W. by Deptford. Pop. (1901) 95,770. Area, 3851.7 acres. It has a river-frontage of 4-1/2 m., the Thames making two deep bends, enclosing the Isle of Dogs on the north and a similar peninsula on the Greenwich side. Greenwich is connected with Poplar on the north shore by the Greenwich tunnel (1902), for foot-passengers, to the Isle of Dogs (Cubitt Town), and by the Blackwall Tunnel (1897) for street traffic, crossing to a point between the East and West India Docks (see POPLAR). The main thoroughfares from W. to E. are Woolwich and Shooter's Hill Roads, the second representing the old high road through Kent, the Roman Watling Street. Greenwich is first noticed in the reign of Ethelred, when it was a station of the Danish fleet (1011-1014). The most noteworthy buildings are the hospital and the observatory. Greenwich Hospital, as it is still called, became in 1873 a Royal Naval College. Upon it or its site centre nearly all the historical associations of the place. The noble buildings, contrasting strangely with the wharves adjacent and opposite to it, make a striking picture, standing on the low river-bank with a background formed by the wooded elevation of Greenwich Park. They occupy the site of an ancient royal palace called Greenwich House, which was a favourite royal residence as early as 1300, but was granted by Henry V. to Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, from whom it passed to Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, who largely improved the property and named it _Placentia_. It did not revert to the crown till his death in 1447. It was the birthplace of Henry VIII., Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and here Edward VI. died. The building was enlarged by Edward IV., by Henry VIII., who made it one of his chief residences, by James I. and by Charles I., who erected the "Queen's House" for Henrietta Maria. The tenure of land from the crown "as of the manor of East Greenwich" became at this time a recognized formula, and occurs in a succession of American colonial charters from those of Virginia in 1606, 1609 and 1612 to that of New Jersey in 1674. Along with other royal palaces Greenwich was at the Revolution appropriated by the Protector, but it reverted to the crown on the restoration of Charles II., by whom it was pulled down, and the west wing of the present hospital was erected as part of an extensive design which was not further carried out. In its unfinished state it was assigned by the patent of William and Mary to certain of the great officers of state, as commissioners for its conversion into a hospital for seamen; and it was opened as such in 1705. The building consists of four blocks. Behind a terrace 860 ft. in length, stretching along the river side, are the buildings erected in the time of Charles II. from Inigo Jones's designs, and in that of Queen Anne from designs by Sir Christopher Wren; and